In this summary of our newest government case study, follow along and discover the Republic of Serbia’s unique challenges, how Nextcloud was implemented, and ultimately how our solution fits the needs for its legislators and their data.

The challenge

The Serbian government believes digitalization is expected to bring many benefits to the general public, civil sector and government institutions. Through its national digitalization project, they intend to promote digitization of state and civil institutions. One way to achieve this is through implementing a more innovative IT solution for its government.

In the past, the Serbian government relied on a VPN and SMB (Server Message Block) for
accessing and sharing files. However, it wasn’t user friendly and there were often issues that arose
that wasted IT staff resources. It was time to look for a solution.

Requirements for the project

• All data kept in Serbia
• Compliant with data privacy laws
• Supports large files
• Meets reliability and performance standards
• Supports mobile clients
• Integrate with Serbia’s national digitalization project

Choosing a new solution

IT company NETcom System d.o.o. worked closely with the National Assembly’s Operations, Communication and IT sectors to find a new solution. They proposed Nextcloud because of its ability to run your own server on-premises, enable secure document sharing, and facilitate team collaboration.

A digitally sovereign state

With the implementation of Nextcloud, the Serbian government regained control over their data and achieved digital sovereignty. The National Assembly leaders can now collaborate on projects easily and rely on everything they need in one place. They can also benefit from secure sharing of documents to external parties and be reassured by overall increased security.

The post The Republic of Serbia deploys Nextcloud for compliant, on-premises collaboration appeared first on Nextcloud.

Read on to find out how the Archdiocese of Cologne created their own private cloud solution with Nextcloud.

About the Archdiocese of Cologne

The Archdiocese of Cologne, or Erzbistum Köln in German, is the largest Catholic diocese in all of Germany. Home to 1.8 million Catholics, the institution has been around for over 1,700 years and continues to bring people together and preach the Catholic faith.

The Nextcloud solution

The team at the Archdiocese of Cologne needed a solution that enabled their employees and volunteers to be able to communicate and collaborate effectively. With Nextcloud, this and all the requirements of their IT department were met:

• Simple, easy to use and intuitive solution
• Coverage for thousands of users spread over 6,100 square kilometers
• Availability of web-based Office
• Improvement of communication and cooperation of employees and volunteers
• Integrations with existing use of BBB (Big Blue Button) and Outlook
• Strict data protection compliance with GDPR

A diocese-wide collaboration platform

With the help of Nextcloud and their IT provider, an on-premises collaboration platform for all diocese members was implemented. Coined «communis,» employees and volunteers can now use Nextcloud Files, Talk, Office and more.

Read the full case study

In the case study, learn more about the Archdiocese’s implementation of Nextcloud and its results.

Download now

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Sorbonne University, or La Sorbonne, is a a renowned university in Paris, France first established in 1257. Over more than a 750 year period, names like Marie Curie, François Mitterrand and Vera Wang were all pupils at the institution making history in science, politics and fashion. In 2018, Paris-Sorbonne University (Paris IV) and Pierre and Marie Curie University (Paris VI), both constituents of the University of Paris, were merged together under one name: Sorbonne.

Today, Sorbonne University boasts 55,000 students including 6,700 researchers and a staff of 15,000. As part of their digitization master plan, they wanted to set up and provide its users with personal cloud storage based on open-source products hosted on its own infrastructures. This project was dubbed ‘DropSU.’

DropSU

DropSU is Sorbonne University’s official cloud solution. It is hosted on the university’s servers so it is GDPR compliant and has restricted access to data which is ideal for researchers working on confidential files.

The main use is for university administrators who use it for storing, sharing and collaborating on documents individually or on a team. They have the ability to use it from anywhere, without having to connect to a VPN or internal network.

Since much of the administrators work is done with people outside the university, documents can be easily accessed by external users through secure file sharing. All the administrator has to do is send a file link in an email that either gives read, edit or download rights to the recipient.

All in all, users picked up DropSU quite easily as the tool is intuitive and puts you in control fast. The staff is now accustomed to the system and collaborative work is done seamlessly everyday.

Mission accomplished

With DropSU, the university was able to achieve a sovereign cloud solution for its staff and researchers. Maintaining control over their data and user accounts was an important objective for them and can now be managed by their internal IT team alongside Nextcloud.

Sorbonne University set up the technical architecture with Nextcloud Gold Partner Arawa. Arawa also assists the University with the maintenance and support of Nextcloud Hub.

Read the full case study

To learn more about this educational use case including a detailed look into their implementation of Nextcloud, their infrastructure and plans for the future, please consult the case study which you can download now.

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At ZGT, a hospital in the Netherlands, the IT team turned to Nextcloud to keep their data secure, on-premises, and compliant.

As Jeroen Agten, Coordinator ICT at ZGT puts it, “health care data is very valuable, it is like digital gold.”

About ZGT Hospital

ZGT is a hospital in Almelo and Hengelo in the Netherlands known for their expertise in oncology, complex diabetes, and obesitas. They also have a small clinic in the Dutch region of Twente.

Between handling half a million policlinial visits every year, 25,000 clinical admissions, and 52,000 daily treatments, they obtain an enormous amount of data.

They also work with several other academic hospitals in the area which they collaborate with to deliver the best possible results for their patients.

Digital Sovereignty First

When ZGT began to realize the possibilities and benefits of achieving digital sovereignty, they decided to deploy Nextcloud to help them carry it out.

One benefit of digital sovereignty is having complete vendor independence. During the corona crisis, a lot of hospitals accepted the “free” Microsoft Teams offer which typically resulted in employees also using the rest of Microsoft products and ultimately getting locked-in without a proper decision making process or risk-benefit analysis ever having been made. Such vendor lock-in not only limits flexibility, but also results in significant costs, especially with the big tech companies. With Nextcloud, ZGT’s files are under their own control and the solution is much more cost effective.

Another benefit is how easy it is to achieve compliance with privacy regulations. With services like Microsoft that store some or all of the data in data centers overseas, implementing their service involves a long and complicated journey to comply with both EU and Dutch compliance regulations. With Nextcloud, there were no compliance loopholes and they get through audits easily because all their data is on-premises in their own data centers.

To learn about more ways ZGT accomplished digital soverienty with Nextcloud, read the full case study.

Implementing Nextcloud with Ease

ZGT started the Nextcloud implementation with their IT department, and then rolled it out to more teams and departments. After each implementation, they discovered the whole process flowed with ease.

The repo team for instance took advantage of Nextcloud’s storage capabilities right away by uploading all their documents since 1993 – 100 GB of data – in one night. This was entirely unplanned, but the IT team was pleased to see that Nextcloud held up perfectly fine.

On the engineering team, users caught on to the interface quickly and soon wanted more – in the form of apps. Implementing new apps like dicom viewer for example added new functionality and were incredibly useful for the team.

As more and more teams implemented and were trained to use Nextcloud, the more positive responses they got. Nextcloud was easy to collaborate on, store large amounts of data, and endless apps could be added.

To read more about ZGT’s easy Nextcloud implementation, read the full case study.

Overall, in the case of Dutch hospital ZGT, Nextcloud speaks for itself. They were able to create a scalable Nextcloud infrastructure that serves all the needs of their users, is on-premise, cost effective, and secure.

Nextcloud Enterprise is certified to serve healthcare administrations like ZGT’s needs, including our HIPAA and HITECH compliance. We are committed to ensure our software keeps PHI (Protected Health Information) private and secure. Read more about how Nextcloud fits in a HIPAA compliant infrastructure on our Nextcloud in Healthcare page.

To discover the full ZGT hospital story, read the full case study and get a plethora of insider details, quotes from their team and leadership, and reasons why Nextcloud is ideal for use in hospitals.

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The Swedish National Board of Housing, Building and Planning, Boverket, will be using a private packaged cloud service consisting of Nextcloud Hub for its 270 employees. Boverket wanted to procure a modern and functional platform that at the same time meets regulatory requirements. The housing agency has procured this digital collaboration cloud service based on findings and functional mappings presented within the digital collaboration report from the Swedish government.

This cloud service will be delivered and operated by our local partner Redpill Linpro and offers capabilities for video meetings, chat, file sharing and document management to the authority’s 270 employees.

This news follows a clear trend where Swedish and Nordic authorities, municipalities and companies are in need of solutions and services which are able to comply with their regulatory requirements.

More information

• Website of Boverket, Swedish National Board of Housing, Building and Planning.
• Press release about Boverket on website Redpill Linpro.
• eSam Report «Digital collaboration platform for the public sector» from the Swedish government.

The post Swedish National Board of Housing, Building and Planning chooses Nextcloud appeared first on Nextcloud.

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.

How it works (an end user perspective)

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!

Perfect for an education environment

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.

The post GDPR compliant collaboration coming to 750K students, teachers and researchers in Sweden appeared first on Nextcloud.

Cloud centered, cloud focused

For some time now, Stadtsparkasse München has been running an on-premises Nextcloud server to exchange confidential data with customers. More recently, in 2020, the bank decided that they wanted to transfer all their internal managed systems to the data centers of competent, regional partners. With a Gold Partnership with Nextcloud, HKN stood out as an ideal partner for running their Nextcloud services.

Nextcloud offers a unique on-premises solution for financial services companies.

HKN delivers Nextcloud on its open cloud

With 25 years of experience in hosting Linux applications, HKN was more than capable to deliver quality results with all Stadtsparkasse’s requirements for a provider. From being a German based data center, to having significant migration experience, their top five requirements were met.

For several months, HKN was there throughout the entire process, ensuring a smooth migration and testing every detail. The end result satisfied employees and administrators.

By switching to HKN’s Open Cloud, Stadtsparkasse München achieved high availability, scalability, DSGVO-compliant hosting, and more.

Nextcloud Enterprise and beyond

Through HKN, Stadtsparkasse München benefits from Nextcloud Enterprise advantages like improved security, stability and of course direct access to our top engineers.

As a highly trusted financial institution, Stadtsparkasse München has always been looking a step ahead to provide the most advanced, modern, and secure solutions that deliver the best service to their valued customers in Munich and beyond. They are a bank committed to their city and with this interest in society they keep an integral focus on new apps and features.

Check out the case study to get a detailed look at how Stadtsparkasse München, HKN, and Nextcloud conquered the challenge, how they implemented it, and the final results.

The post Stadtsparkasse Munich facilitates customer data exchange with Nextcloud by HKN appeared first on Nextcloud.

The administration in charge consists of approximately 4,500 employees located at different locations scattered across the city. They are comprised of a Secretariat General and five departments which involve several services. A major part of their daily workflow is collaborating with all the teams across the city and for a long time, were faced with a major challenge. This mainly concerned an outdated filing system with fewer functionalities, flexibility, and security.

From ownCloud to Nextcloud due to security concerns

When you want to exchange files seamlessly, collaborate internally and externally, and all the while having a system that is easy to use for all, working on a cloud is a great place to start. In 2013, the City of Geneva took its first steps toward this change and implemented ownCloud. However, after four years and a progressive decline in meeting expectations, they chose to look to Nextcloud.

With such prominence and importance on a global level, the Geneva city administrators place a high priority on security. It is very important for them to have a cloud solution that is secure, compliant with privacy law, and that all their data is kept in Switzerland. With Nextcloud, these requirements were all possible and to prove it, extensive measures were evaluated to make sure our solution was the best fit.

After testing the solution in a Proof of Concept, it clearly appeared that Nextcloud was
professionally developed and maintained. It was also very stable and the security audit was excellent. We also got strong support during the proof of concept, even without a subscription and not being a customer yet. It was prompt, professional and very efficient.

From a lengthy code audit involving a third party to a proof of concept proven incredibly successful, they finally were convinced to turn to Nextcloud for good and haven’t looked back since.

An Effective Switch to Nextcloud

Nextcloud could finally provide what the City of Geneva needed, and more. For instance, now when an employee needs to share a file to a recipient outside of the organization, all it takes is copying a link of the file and sending it in an email.

It is as easy as accessing a webpage. The best [part] about it is that people who receive the link do not have to install Nextcloud or anything, they just click the link!

Nextcloud also notably delivered on many factors relating to their unique needs, including:

• Sharing capabilities, done in just two clicks securely and easily.
• Ability to manage users in a few seconds, as opposed to 8 minutes under ownCloud.
• Servers on ESX farm for virtual machines, as well as in brick and mortar buildings for physical servers.
• Infinite space for their 1,025,000 files, 1.2 Tb of data, and 2,200 active users who collaborate internally and externally.
• And more!

The future of Nextcloud in the City of Geneva

From Nextcloud Files to Calendar, the City of Geneva employees find our platform and service useful, intuitive, and plain and simple easy to use. Why stop there? They are currently underway to implement even more Nextcloud capabilities like Deck and Talk.

The City of Geneva is using their Nextcloud Enterprise subscription to its maximum advantage. From being able to ask for new features anytime, to have quick resolutions for ad-hoc issues, Enterprise allows the client to focus on what they need and want, while having direct and 24/7 access to Nextcloud engineers who know the platform like the back of their hand.

Interested in reading the full case study? Download the case study here and read more about the expectations, challenges, migration, and results from the City of Geneva.

The post City of Geneva: Deploying Nextcloud to achieve Digital sovereignty appeared first on Nextcloud.

SIB is a major, global public actor of digital services that supports healthcare structures and public entities in their digital transformation. They have been working on taking the information systems to the next level for the Ille-et-Vilaine department in France, including middle schools.

SIB provides infrastructures to teachers and pupils: computers, servers, hosted applications, networks and support. They wanted to modernize their former file system with new requirements :

• Remote access
• Multidevices compatibility (smartphones, tablets, computers…)
• Advanced collaboration features on documents
• Advanced sharing features
• Share groups

We built a test version simulating the use of Nextcloud in the middle school environment. We had excellent feedback and we validated the solution.

Using Nextcloud and Collabora Online

The initial deployment is serving 5 middle schools, which is approximately 12000 users. This number will be risen to 33.000 pupils and 2.500 teachers in 57 middle schools step by step.

Students work from home, inside Nextcloud Group Folders and use Collabora Online. This way teachers don’t have the issue that they don’t have the right Microsoft Office version to read the students’ work, avoiding interoperability problems.

Teachers and directors of schools use Collabora also for sharing and collaboration for administrative tasks.

Great user feedback

Users welcomed Nextcloud and its features with great enthusiasm: they loved the remote access to documents, online collaborative edition and the user-friendliness of the solution.

Some teachers already used online hosting solutions. For them, having the same experience hosted in Britanny by a security, privacy and protection-oriented public organization was a very positive experience. For users unfamiliar with those services, offered support and personal coaching was offered during migration phases. They gained experience with Nextcloud and used it for innovative uses with their pupils during class time.

There’s more!

Read the full case study to learn more about the reasons that made SIB choose Nextcloud & Collabora for this project, their initial requirements, technical configurations and infrastructure decisions.

Find more whitepapers and case studies for a deep insight in what Nextcloud has to offer in your industry.

The post Use Case: SIB delivering Nextcloud to 2500 teachers and 33000 pupils in Brittany, France appeared first on Nextcloud.

You can download the full report (in Swedish) here and in English here.

Defining the concept of digital collaboration platform

The report gives an exhaustive definition of digital collaboration, noting the important components needed for teams to work together. Visualized below, they consists of:

• Document management with collaborative editing
• Persistent chat rooms
• Video calls
• Whiteboarding
• Planning and coordiation with Kanban

The document describes that, when working together, there are several modes in which the work might be organized, something that depends on the task, team and situation. It can be the chat room that is central to the work, or the project and task management, or the file collaboration solution. This makes it clear that it is important that each of these three is capable of holding its own and playing the central role that is asked of it.

Market analysis

The report continues to describe the results of the market analysis by the 8 government agencies. They have found two complete platforms that have the required maturity and compliance to be suitable for large-scale, government use:

• Nextcloud (open source, self hosted or cloud-hosted by Swedish providers)
• Compliant Office (proprietary, public cloud in Sweden hosted, IceWarp based)

The report also notes it is possible to build a mis-mash of various separate solutions that together provide the same functionality. Of course, such solutions will have overlap and gaps and not offer the integrated and efficient user collaboration experience of a complete, all-in-one solution.

This makes Nextcloud in many cases the best, most suitable, open source and on-premises platform for collaboration in Government.

Nextcloud is already in use at the Swedish Transport Agency and the Swedish Social Insurance Agency, while Försäkringskassan offers authorities Nextcloud as a service. Further deployments are expected.

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