European researchers are up to date with modern cloud storage solutions, however struggle to find one that is safe, secure, and that meets compliance standards.
SUNET, a Swedish company, found a solution to providing a GDPR compliant service through their provider Safespring.
Today, we can introduce to you Sunet Drive: A managed storage solution installed in an institutions local IT environment built on trusted open-source software and open standards.
The Swedish solution
SUNET is the Swedish University Computer Network which provides high-speed Internet access to academic institutions in Sweden. Part of SUNET is the NREN or Swedish National Research & Education organization which was founded in the 1980’s as a research project for Swedish computer scientists. Together, they now connect 750,000 users including researchers, teachers and students in 110 organizations via 8,400 km of fiber.
Safespring is the provider of SUNET’s cloud offering to the Swedish academic sector and has since built large scale cloud solutions for SUNET’s customers.
With Sunet Drive by Safespring, users don’t need to worry about the security issues behind public cloud services or have to rely on their own institutions to implement, run, and maintain a private cloud. The result is a reliable storage system that’s GDPR compliant.
Nextcloud in Sunet Drive
Nextcloud is an integral part of the Sunet Drive solution.
When users want to share documents, files and other project components to colleagues internally as well as external users, it is easily done. Users have complete control and autonomy over sharing permissions to enable who gets access, when and where.
From a technical perspective, there are several self-containing nodes which are installations of Nextcloud. Within each Nextcloud node are S3 bucket’s which are basically separate external drives that have the ability to store an entire project. From an operations perspective, Nextcloud servers can easily be scaled out by adding more instances that may be needed.
Also, with Nextcloud there is the possibility for a single sign-on capability for users. This is due to the Global Site Selector functionality which is another Nextcloud node.
With the help of other open source software Ceph and OpenStack, the virtual machines behind the use of Nextcloud is able to run smoothly.
It is relatively simple to use this enterprise file sync and share (EFSS) solution.
First, a user logs in through their institutional account using a single sign-on made possible by the Global Site Selector. Then, the user is re-directed to their federated node co-managed between Sunet/Safespring and/or their institution. This basically means that a user can have a dedicated storage area for a specific project (the S3 bucket) which then shows up as a normal folder in Nextcloud and is thus subject to Nextcloud standard applications and processes.
From there, collaboration with researchers at other institutions is easily possible by inviting them into Sunet Drive. This is possible due to the look-up server residing in other Nextcloud nodes which is able to seamlessly find them. Once you’ve established your connection, you can easily make file transfers between institutions due to the NREN network.
Lastly, once a project is completed, the properties of the S3 bucket can not only be changed, but the ownership of the data can be transferred too. That being said, if a user moves to another institution at any time, they can access their new Nextcloud node without any hassle or complexities.
We hope this provides a concrete perspective for your understanding and have equally shown the wonderful benefits of this collaboration!
In the education industry, collaboration is key to innovation and progress. We gain new ideas and perspectives from others and need to work with them to make progress.
The Sunet Drive SafeSpring solution with Nextcloud is made to fit researcher, educator and student needs at universities and delivers all the requirements of a storage solution. From collaboration and ease of use, to low cost and compliancy standards, universities all over Europe are covered.
We are proud to be the trusted open-source software for Sunet Drive that allows the data to follow the researcher, and not the other way around.
To learn more about the implementation of Nextcloud in Sunet Drive, read the full case study here.
Watch this recording to learn more about the capabilities for data security and collaboration.
DIE ZEIT, a prominent German outlet, interviewed Nextcloud’s founder Frank Karlitschek for an article on Microsoft’s anti-competitive behaviour on the European office software market. Read for a recap of the article and the key takeaways.
MagentaCLOUD’s migration to Nextcloud in 2021 resulted in a fully equipped Online Storage with an integrated online office suite that further improves the user experience, flexibility and security for customers.
The Nextcloud Community Conference is not your average event - it's a community meetup that brings together Nextcloud enthusiasts, contributors, developers, users and industry experts from all over the world.
We bring you a major update to the Nextcloud AI Assistant, plus the news we work with several big hosting providers like IONOS and OVHcloud to bring AI-as-a-Service options to you!
Bechtle and Nextcloud announce today a complete managed collaboration platform for the public sector that requires no tender and can be deployed immediately.
Discover how to make the switch from ownCloud to Nextcloud. Our quick guide provides insights into the migration process, helping you make the transition smoothly.
Today, US-based file sync & share vendor Kiteworks announced their acquisition of ownCloud and Dracoon. Kiteworks points out that their customers now have access to their file-sharing application. It is to be expected they will not maintain 3 similar products, but customers will have to migrate to the US firms’ platform or look for another […]
As part of Schleswig-Holstein's state digitization strategy, the state chancellery has announced they will work with Nextcloud to develop AI for working with government documents. This comes just after we announced the first private AI assistant last weekend with Hub 6. The German state already uses Nextcloud and their AI strategy aligns with our work on ethical, local AI technologies.
Over the last year, AI has become a popular topic. Some is hype, some is substance. Some is good, some is bad. We want to give you the good, not the bad, and ignore the hype! AI has a ton of opportunity – but also risk. So we put you in control – off by […]
Last year we were joined by Roundcube, the most popular open source webmail client. At the time we promised to invest in the project (interview) and since then we have brought back the mailing lists and accelerating development. And today - we introduce enterprise support for Roundcube!
We save some cookies to count visitors and make the site easier to use. This doesn't leave our server and isn't to track you personally!
See our Privacy Policy for more information. Customize
Statistics cookies collect information anonymously and help us understand how our visitors use our website. We use cloud-hosted Matomo
Matomo
_pk_ses*: Counts the first visit of the user
_pk_id*: Helps not to double count the visits.
mtm_cookie_consent: Remembers that consent for storing and using cookies was given by the user.
_pk_ses*: 30 minutes
_pk_id*: 28 days
mtm_cookie_consent: 30 days