Production Deployment of ownCloud Infinite Scale at CERN

OwnCloud GmbH present the first production deployment of ownCloud Infinite Scale – at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research)!

It is not only the largest particle physics lab in the world, but also a long-standing ownCloud customer and valued partner. The CERN IT department‘s storage team has engaged in UI, API and backend development with ownCloud for many years.

We are thrilled to see that Infinite Scale is received so well. It is our modernized cloud-native platform based on Microservices, Go and Vue.js. CERN is among the early adopters and the first institution to adopt it for production use.

CERNBox: Access to 1.4 billion files and 12PB of data
The new CERNBox instance based on ownCloud Infinite Scale and the new ownCloud Web went live in April 2021 for a limited set of privileged users. The instance is connected to the actual production systems at CERN, so through Infinite Scale, users have access to the underlying data repository containing 1.4 billion files and 12PB of data. Thanks to its effective integration of both technologies, Infinite Scale supports CERN’s EOS Open Storage technologies by allowing these to use EOS-native capabilities to provide sync and share functionalities.

The CS3APIs are interfaces for cloud storage sync and share platforms, meant to make operation easier and integration with other services more straightforward. Reva is CERN’s implementation of the CS3APIs. Infinite Scale uses the Reva software as one of its core components. This enables ownCloud Infinite Scale to connect cloud storage and application providers in an inter-operable way with a native implementation of the CS3APIs. And it means that sites deploying Infinite Scale can join the European Science Mesh, a federated pan-european network for data storage and sharing.

Users at CERN can switch between Infinite Scale and ownCloud 10 to access the familiar interface and cherished functionality, aiming to make the transition to the new platform smoother as more features are added.

Milestone
“ownCloud has reached a significant milestone with ownCloud Infinite Scale”, says Hugo Gonzalez Labrador, project leader, CERNBox, IT department, CERN. “The new product will help CERN extend and modernize the CERNBox service towards new horizons as ownCloud Infinite Scale provides an answer to most of the needs expressed by our user communities over the last years. The new platform not only brings advanced architecture, but we feel that the choice of technologies used by ownCloud Infinite Scale also provides CERN with a better opportunity to source talent and work hand in hand with other communities that share similar underlying tech stacks. We have been closely collaborating with ownCloud on the new platform. We are thrilled to see that CERN’s developed technology, Reva software, has been successfully integrated into the ownCloud’s new product, highlighting CERN’s commitment to building further links with industry in terms of knowledge transfer.”

“This is a great day for ownCloud”, says Klaas Freitag, CTO, ownCloud. “It is amazing for the whole team to see the new CERNBox, based on ownCloud Infinite Scale, go live. This has been a long journey up to this point. It is great to see the first people use it in real life. This achievement validates the new architecture, and it encourages us to keep pushing on. We are looking forward to intensify our collaboration with CERN, to make ownCloud Infinite Scale a success.”