Federation offers a solution to the challenges posed by centrally controlled public cloud applications by letting users communicate and collaborate between independent servers and even independent apps. In this article, we explain how federation works, what features you can use with federation in Nextcloud, and discover how it can help businesses and governments achieve digital sovereignty.

Whether you’re new to federation features or already familiar with them, let’s start with the basics.

Understanding the federated internet

It’s a well-known fact that on-premises software offers more autonomy compared to public cloud tools in several ways, largely due to the level of control organizations have over their infrastructure and data. Self-hosting is a definition of decentralization in the realm of collaborative technologies. An important question arises when considering self-hosting: how can we collaborate effectively using decentralized software?

The answer lies in federation – it’s the key to making decentralized collaboration possible. To understand federation, you need to ask yourself – how does email work? Email is, in fact, federation in action: it operates through a network of independent servers connected via standard protocols and allowing users from different domains to exchange messages with ease via single client.

Or take Mastodon, a federated social network where each instance is a separate server run by an independent entity or community. Each user can sign up on an instance they prefer, and then follow, reply to, or message users on other instances, making communication across the entire network seamless.

In Nextcloud, user’s Federated Cloud ID works similar to an email address or a Mastodon handle, allowing them to exchange data across servers: share files and and collaborate on documents, communicate in group chats and make audio and video calls.

Federation and digital sovereignty

Federation enables private users, organizations, and their departments to use independent infrastructure, hosting their software locally with customized security and compliance measures. Each entity operates its own platform while staying connected to a larger network that supports cross-server collaboration. This decentralized architecture reduces reliance on a single service provider. It also frees you from vendor lock-in, allowing you to choose a trusted provider and work with the software that meets your needs, all while retaining the ability to collaborate seamlessly across different platforms.

Regulators are responding to a growing backlash against big tech firms from users who perceive their behaviour as market abuse, with the term ‘malicious compliance’ being used. This trend causes a growing interest in decentralization technologies.

Frank Karlitschek

Nextcloud founder

Finally, self-hosting with federated features gives you full ownership and control over your data. You choose your own encryption and own access controls, or get more flexible where others can’t, pursuing only your own compliance objectives. Companies and governments can avoid numerous risks by not having to store data under unfavourable regulations, break free from the privacy terms of large cloud providers, and enjoy freedom without being controlled by foreign entities.

Federation in Nextcloud

In Nextcloud Hub, it is already possible to do a lot when it comes to federated collaboration, as we mentioned above. For example, you can share files across servers and even collaborate on them, while federation in Nextcloud Talk enables you to join group chats and run meetings on another server.

Besides better security, easier compliance and more independence, there’s also convenience: you don’t need to send invites or create guest accounts, or set up your own on somebody’s instance. Just use your own account and stay within familiar interface of your home platform — you won’t even notice any difference.

Sure, there are certain limitations, for example, you can’t create private federated chats in Nextcloud Talk yet. But we already support many essential and handy features like polls, markdown and user mentions. And federation in Nextcloud constantly evolves as we explore more abilities of the Federated Cloud Sharing API.

How to configure federated features in your Nextcloud Hub

If you wish to configure and manage federation tools in your Nextcloud, you need to enable the Federation app and follow a few easy steps:

1. Enable the Federation app.
2. Allow your users to share and receive files from other servers.
3. Create a list of trusted servers to enable federation features for them.

Read our documentation for detailed instructions on enabling federation features and federated sharing, and creating federated conversations in Nextcloud Talk.

Federated calls and more amazing features in Nextcloud Hub 9

With Nextcloud Hub 9, we introduced federated calls in Nextcloud Talk, as well as multiple other exciting features across the entire platform. The latest update lets you stay connected like never before
— with new automation features, Nextcloud Whiteboard, new tools in Nextcloud Assistant, improved Nexcloud Mail and Nextcloud Calendar, and much more.

New to Nextcloud? There’s no better time to try it out! Get control over your data today with the most secure open-source collaboration platform.

Get Nextcloud Hub 9

Download and install Nextcloud Hub 9 here!

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The post Federation: a foundational concept for digital sovereignty? appeared first on Nextcloud.

Sometimes you need to illustrate graphically what words cannot convey. And with a digital whiteboard tool, you don’t need drawing or design skills to do that. Read on to discover Nextcloud Whiteboard, a brand new app among Nextcloud’s collaborative tools launched with Nextcloud Hub 9.

Nextcloud Whiteboard, an online digital whiteboard

Digital whiteboards, just like their analogue predecessors, are useful in many settings from a classroom to a busy team meeting. For instance, you can use a whiteboard during a brainstorming session to sketch, map out strategies, or visualize workflows. Or assist your project planning by outlining project timelines, assigning tasks, and tracking progress. Whiteboards are also essential to online teaching and training, allowing educators to make lessons more engaging and dynamic by providing a space to interact, annotate, and visualize concepts together.

With Nextcloud Whiteboard, you can do all of that within your own secure environment and while enjoying seamless integration in your file system and video conferencing tools.

Nextcloud Whiteboard is a collaborative whiteboard tool featuring hand-drawn style that is based on Excalidraw app. It lets you enjoy lots of editing features and support for images, web embeds, shapes and other objects. You can easily save and share entire whiteboards and separate sketches to share ideas or invite your team to work together. Nextcloud Whiteboard is a part of our Nextcloud Office bundle that features various universal collaborative tools for editing and data processing in Nextcloud Hub.

Infinite canvas and a variety of instruments

Nextcloud Whiteboard has unlimited canvas, meaning that you can create as many sketches, schemes and illustrations as you need, all in one file. You can invite dozens of users to collaborate with you and let them enjoy their own space on the whiteboard, or move from one task to another without having to wipe clean your valuable ideas.

Many elements, including simple lines, shapes and texts, are designed to resemble hand drawings, adding a relaxed mood to your whiteboards and letting you create freely without worrying about perfection. What matters is your ideas and an ability to express them, and Nextcloud Whiteboard has plenty of tools to make that possible.

Create a digital whiteboard from Nextcloud Files

Where do we start? No need to look for the Nextcloud Whiteboard icon on your toolbar — it opens automatically when you create or open a whiteboard file. To start using Nextcloud Whiteboard from your file system, you just need to create a new whiteboard file from your “+” menu.

Launch a whiteboard in Nextcloud Talk

Want to work in a whiteboard during a Nextcloud Talk call? You don’t need to go looking for a blank file — just create it right from the attachment menu of the chat. As usual, you can pick one of the available templates to save time coming up with the structure. Once created, the new whiteboard appears in the chat, accessible to all participants.

Host engaging, interactive meetings

We introduced Nextcloud Whiteboard integration features in Nextcloud Talk to enable a variety of new ways to use our video conferencing platform. For example, you can turn your meeting into a virtual classroom or organize an interactive online workshop. Thanks to infinite canvas space, you can use one whiteboard for many different tasks, no matter the scale and number of collaborators.

When you open or create a whiteboard file from the attachment menu, Nextcloud Whiteboard will open the canvas in front of you, without showing it to other participants in your video stream. To join you in editing, they need to click on the whiteboard file inside the conversation and activate their own editor. Now you can start collaborating in real time right inside your group chat, or present your digital whiteboard to others live (make sure to try the Laser Pointer tool!).

Create free drawings

You can draw anything with a hand drawing tool and apply settings like line color, automatic background fill type and color for drawn objects, opacity, and stroke width. The brush is dynamic: it reacts to your motions and drawing speed as you draw, making it look and feel like a real hand drawing!

Build and customize shapes

To save time drawing your schemes and sketches, you can use one of the available shape presets: rectangle, diamond and circle. Once created you can adjust the shape’s appearance by configuring its settings in the left panel.

You can also save shapes and other objects to your personal library to reuse them later, or add shapes created by other users to Nextcloud Whiteboard from Excalidraw library.

Draw schemes with lines and arrows

Arrows and lines in Nextcloud Whiteboard give you a lot of freedom. You can stick them to other objects to preserve scheme structure no matter how you change their positions, bind them freely and as many times as you wish, and even add labels.

You can create a straight arrow or line quickly by pressing your cursor and simply dragging the arrow’s end. To create a complex, bound arrow or line, click on the starting point once to begin drawing, and then lead your line by clicking on each location where you want it to bind. If you hover it near an object while drawing, you can stick it to that object in the desired place.

Perform various actions with objects and lines

You can perform various actions with drawn objects and lines. For example, adjust multiple stroke and shape settings, change color, duplicate them, add hyperlinks, and more. You can also click on an object to rotate, resize and reshape it the way you want to, and even move the pivot points of your lines.

Once your digital whiteboard grows complex, rearranging your objects and sketches might become difficult (and messy!). But Frame tool has got you covered — you can enable it from the right menu of the top toolbar and group any objects you desire in a frame to perform bulk actions with ease.

Type and format texts

Using text tool, you can add any texts to your whiteboards. If you don’t like the default hand-drawn look of the font, you can change the font family to Normal or Code. You can also change the text alignment and opacity and, of course, it’s color. Don’t worry if you made a typo — texts stay editable after saving.

Embed pictures and videos

Using image tool, upload an image or simply drag and image file onto the whiteboard to add it to your canvas. You can also add videos and other web objects using the Web Embed tool from the rightmost drop-down menu of the toolbar.

Save and share your digital whiteboard

You can quickly export your whiteboards and even separate objects as JPG or SVG images to share, embed, print or upload them anywhere you want. Just click the small menu icon on your left and export your content as an image with desired display settings. You can also simply copy it co clipboard to quickly share it in an email or chat without downloading.

You can share your whiteboards in Nextcloud Hub to team members or external collaborators to invite them for collaboration or demonstrate your ideas, just like you share any other files. This is possible with the sidebar share menu where you can choose recipients, secure your link with passwords, set expiry date and apply other protection settings, instantly share the file via email, and much more.

Be connected with Nextcloud Hub 9!

Nextcloud Whiteboard is only one of the exciting new apps and features released together with Nextcloud Hub 9. With the latest update, Nextcloud Hub lets you stay connected like never before
— with new automation features, federated calls, new tools in Nextcloud Assistant, improved Nexcloud Mail and Nextcloud Calendar, and much more.

Note: Nextcloud Whiteboard is a part of the Ultimate tier of Nextcloud Enterprise. Contact us to get a quote. Learn more about Nextcloud Enterprise on the dedicated page.

New to Nextcloud? There’s no better time to try it out! Get control over your data today with the most secure open-source collaboration platform.

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Download and install Nextcloud Hub 9 here!

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With the release of Nextcloud Hub 8, Nextcloud Talk enables federated chats, extending the range of cross-instance features available in Nextcloud Hub. In this article, learn how to connect users across different Nextcloud instances to organize collaboration between distant teams.

Nextcloud Talk is a chat and videoconferencing platform that enhances the flexibility of your daily work. With app integrations available through Smart Picker, supported interactive widgets from multiple Nextcloud Hub apps, AI-powered features, and more, Nextcloud Talk enables rich communication while prioritizing your privacy. Federated chatting adds even more flexibility, providing an additional bridge between Nextcloud instances for faster and safer communication.

What is federated chat

The federated chat feature is ased on the Open Cloud Mesh (OCM) open standard developed at CERN with the help of Nextcloud and other open source projects. Similar to federated sharing, it uses federated user IDs to enable cross-instance data exchange. To understand how federation works in Nextcloud, you can watch our recent webinar.

The federated chat feature lets you create group chats between the users from federated Nextcloud Talk instances to enable written chat communication among the teams. Although video calls are not supported at the moment, plenty of features are available in federated chats, including user mentions, markdown commands to format message texts, chat polls, and more.

Federated chats can bring customers, partners or colleagues from their instance to your own for easier communication, ensuring that you maintain maximum privacy and keep the data within your perimeter. It is ideal for temporary projects and shared tasks, complimenting other federated features in Nextcloud like file sharing and federated user groups created via Nextcloud Teams.

How to create a federated chat

To create a group chat with federated users, you need to obtain their Federated Cloud IDs. The Federated Cloud ID consists of a user name and an instance address and looks like person@cloud.example.com. You can retrieve it in Settings > Sharing > Federated Cloud.

To add a federated user to a chat, simply put their Federated Cloud ID in the search field of the Participants tab of your chat. Click add, and user will receive an invitation to the chat via notification.

Other updates in Nextcloud Talk

Other updates in Nextcloud Talk released with Nextcloud Hub 8 include:

• Message editing
• Draggable speaker video
• Improved call UI
• Flavored markdown support
• Unified Search in individual Talk room
• Accepting individual users when the lobby is enabled
• Caching unsent messages in the browser
• Improved highlight for “Stop screenshare”

Regain control over your time with Nextcloud Hub 8

Federated chatting is one of the most noteworthy features in the new Nextcloud Talk. Nextcloud Hub 8 offers even more updates that help you work even more efficiently and comfortably, saving a lot of time for you. From new AI tools in Nextcloud Assistant to new apps and serious performance improvements throughout the platform, there are many reasons to upgrade to the latest Nextcloud Hub.

New to Nextcloud? There’s no better time to try it out! Get control over your data today with the most secure open-source collaboration platform.

Get Nextcloud Hub 8

Download and install Nextcloud Hub 8 here!

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More articles about Nextcloud Hub 8 features

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