The Archdiocese of Cologne modernized its collaboration environment by deploying ‘Communis’, a private cloud based on Nextcloud Hub, for more the 6,300 users. The goal was to overcome stringent GDPR and Schrems II requirements, improve communication and ensure secure collaboration for employees and volunteers. Nextcloud offered the ideal foundation: an open-source, on-premise platforms that provides full data sovereignty and compliance with EU privacy laws.
With support from ECKD Service GmbH and the Nextcloud engineering team, the deployment created a highly available environment featuring dedicated servers for Nextcloud Talk, Nextcloud Groupware, and integrated office suite.
Today, Nextcloud powers institution-wide communication through chat, video calls, mails and calendars, while enabling secure internal and external file sharing. The Archdiocese’s usage of Nextcloud Hub has increased over the years from 4,000 to 6,300 active users in 2026.
Building a private cloud that aligns with the vision of the archdiocese and fully complies with Schrems II and GDPR regulations.
Nextcloud deployed on-premises with Files, Talk, Mail, Calendar, and office tools to create a GDPR-compliant collaboration platform.
With Nextcloud Hub, the largest Catholic archdiocese in Germany, the Archdiocese of Cologne, provides its employees a brand new way to securely communicate, collaborate and store information.
In this case study, we share the full story of how Nextcloud was implemented for the Archdiocese and the uncanny results it provides. From creating and sharing files in Nextcloud Files, to chatting and conferencing on Nextcloud Talk, this use case demonstrates the full potential of a potent and scalable collaboration platform in a very unique setting.
The Archdiocese of Cologne, or Erzbistum Köln in German, is the largest Catholic archdiocese in all of Germany. Home to 1.8 million Catholics, it’s been around for over 1,700 years and continues to bring people together in the name of the Catholic faith.
In 2019, the archdiocese implemented ‘Communis,’ a private cloud solution with Nextcloud Talk, Groupware, and Files with the goal of reaching its users spread over 6,100 square kilometers.
Since 2017, the archdiocese has been in need of a content collaboration platform, however the changing regulatory conditions created a real challenge for the IT team.
When the EU-US Privacy Shield was invalidated in 2020 by the European Court of Justice, known as the Schrems II judgment, the team had no choice but to re-design and find a platform that was GDPR compliant under the EU. They came to the conclusion that the easiest solution towards compliance was to deploy a private cloud solution with dedicated support throughout installation, personalization and maintenance.
The Archdiocese of Cologne’s central IT provider, ECKD Service GmbH, was in charge of the implementation alongside the active support of the Nextcloud engineering team. ECDK is responsible for the operation of their data center and helped set up a highly available environment.
This consisted of dedicated servers for all the different components of Nextcloud including Files, Talk, ONLYOFFICE, the database and more.
In total, 11 virtual servers with 80 CPU, 288 GB RAM and 10 TB storage are in use for their Nextcloud Enterprise environment.
A health check of the environment is a vital regular activity to ensure smooth operation of all systems and integrated components, and with Nextcloud it is included in the Enterprise subscription. When the team would like to implement the updates or try new integrations, they are first run in a test environment before they are put into production. This provides stability and consistent improvement of the setup without user interruption.
The Archdiocese of Cologne has grown its collaboration platform from 4,000 to 6,300 active users.
Employees will access their account through windows-based devices and volunteers via any browser. The Archdiocese of Cologne also plans to integrate other features to enhance its platform for more efficient collaboration and integral security measures.
With Nextcloud, the Archdiocese of Cologne achieves an on-premises collaboration platform that connects its entire archdiocese.
Scalability
Hosting in the private cloud allows for expansion and growth within the organization.
Intuitive interface
Users are often part-time or temporary volunteers and now have an easy to understand, simple and intuitive interface to work and collaborate on.
GDPR compliant
The Archdiocese of Cologne is adamant about being GDPR compliant and secure at all times.
Integrations
Integrations with Big Blue Button, OnlyOffice and Microsoft Office are helpful to the team and easily realized using Nextcloud.
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Customer
Archdiocese of Cologne
(Erzbistum Köln)
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