OpenCloud: the digitally sovereign workspace from HKN, Univention and Nextcloud

Since 2018, Nextcloud partner HKN has offered a GDPR compliant set of collaboration tools, hosted in a German, ISO 27001 certified data centers in Hamburg, Berlin, Düsseldorf and Frankfurt am Main. Under the name of OpenCloud: the digitally sovereign workspace, customers can get access to a managed digital workspace based on Nextcloud Hub, with optionally other components. The solution also includes Univention Corporate Server as Single Sign On provider.

We introduced the OpenCloud solution as a premier open source cloud computing platform in 2019 in an earlier post. As, in a few days, the Univention Summit kicks off in Bremen, we thought we would catch up with HKN CEO Marco Nöchel, and learn more about OpenCloud and how it facilitates data sharing and collaboration with maximum security, flexibility and complete control!

Nextcloud: Thanks for taking the time, Marco! What inspired HKN to create the OpenCloud: the digitally sovereign workspace offering?

Marco: While HKN has long offered a variety of custom Nextcloud solutions, there has been a real need in the market for a more turn-key digital workspace, something that ‘just works’. While, of course, complying with the full range of strict security, compliance and digital sovereignty requirements only a a fully open source, German-hosted platform can offer.

So we worked with a number of partners, including Scaleup Technologies, Univention and Nextcloud, to put together a portfolio that offers a complete digital workspace.

Users have a ton of flexibility, from a basic EFSS for file sharing and collaboration to a full digital workspace that also offers email, calendar, chat, calls, project management and more.

Nextcloud: What exactly is OpenCloud and what sets OpenCloud Workspace as a file management and collaboration platform apart from other players in the market?

We’ve completely rethought our open source offering with the OpenCloud! Many providers use great open source solutions like Nextcloud, but what use is the digital sovereignty that the software offers if you run it on the infrastructure of a hyperscaler like AWS or Azure? So it’s easy to want to run open source in an open source cloud like OpenStack.

But you might ask yourself: «how secure is OpenStack on proprietary infrastructure?» and that is a very good question.

Enter Christoph Streit, the visionary CEO of ScaleUp, who pioneered the idea of using OCP hardware, given that the blueprints for OCP are also open source.

Building on this innovative concept, we offer the OpenCloud Workspace, a comprehensive suite of fully integrated solutions that redefines digital sovereignty.

The OpenCloud Workspace includes:

• Fully managed Nextcloud Hub
• Fully managed Univention Corperate Server

We optionally also offer a fully managed Zimbra. When choosing the solutions, the possibility of seamless integration and the support provided by the manufacturer were crucial to us. That is why each of these solutions is also licensed, although many still think that open source should be free of charge.

Nextcloud: So it is a portfolio of email and collaboration tools. Can you talk more about the OpenCloud Workspace?

Marco: Absolutely! The OpenCloud Workspace is our digital workplace that offers companies complete digital sovereignty. It forms a drop-in replacement for Microsoft 365 functionality, from email and video chat to document sharing and editing. But it is also easy to fit in a heterogeneous environment, where different teams use different applications.

We have already extensive experience introducing the platform at customers, including migrating their data and users over from other applications like SharePoint.

As a customer, you don’t want to rely for critical functionality on unproven technology with an uncertain future. So we wanted to offer something that has a track record of delivering scaleable, secure and practical solutions to thousands of customers and millions of users over a long period. Nextcloud is a unique player in that regard.

The long term vision also shows in capabilities like the Nextcloud Assistant, which turns all those unstructured data you have into a valuable resource. Its ability to search through and answer questions about your data, even help get work done – will prove to be invaluable for the future work place.

Combine that with a full set of functionality for seamless collaboration and mature clients on all platforms, mobile and desktop, and you got the perfect solution for collaboration that customers can truly trust.

Nextcloud: in 2019, you already had a ton of customers. Any chance we could get an update?

Marco: 2019 is already some time ago and there have been many changes since then. Without giving precise figures, I can confirm that we currently have hundreds of customers with tens of thousands of users and are a Nextcloud Platinum Partner. Not all customers use the entire OpenCloud Workspace, some might prefer Zimbra for groupware or don’t need some components. This means that a variety of combinations are possible.

One of our newer customers is Jugendhilfe Köln, with whom we are currently working on a case study. This was an exciting project as the ‘Jugendhilfe’ works at many locations and has very high requirements for the operability and data protection of its environment.

Nextcloud: Impressive! So what would a business or public organization need to do to get their own digitally sovereign workspace built on OpenCloud?

Marco: Don’t forget that companies can of course also use our OpenCloud as an IAAS cloud if they themselves want to host their Nextcloud on a complete open source cloud, for example. If you’re interested, just surf to our website https://open-cloud.de, where you’ll find all OpenCloud Services explained and linked to the appropriate contact persons.

You are all welcome to OpenCloud: the digitally sovereign workspace!