Originally conceptualized as a successor of the in-house open source file sharing platform ownCloud 10, ownCloud Infinite Scale has surpassed all expectations and developed into a brand new, standalone, customizable product that boasts new features and is the foundation for many solutions in which data access with compliance, sovereignty and security requirements play a key role.
Infinite Scale was developed with a data platform approach in mind – which is the key difference between Infinite Scale and ownCloud 10, the latter being an end-user focused solution for secure content collaboration and file sharing.
– Holger Dyroff, COO and Managing Director, ownCloud
The leap to a new architecture
“PHP has reached its performance limits,” explains Patrick Maier, Senior Product Manager at ownCloud, explaining the main reason for choosing Go as the new programming language for Infinite Scale.
Klaas Freitag, CTO, ownCloud
“We expect the finished version to have a massive improvement in performance. For our customers, this means significant increases in productivity combined with cost savings due to reduced hardware requirements.
In addition, the architecture freed from the database can be scaled more easily and better, including geographically.”
– Klaas Freitag, CTO, ownCloud
Infinite Scale: The Beta Program
The first beta version of Infinite Scale was released in May 2022 – indeed a proud moment for ownCloud! – after over two years of efforts geared at performance, stability and ease of use.
All features that are planned as a part of the general availability are available in the beta version. The beta version also guarantees that there will be no changes that require a complete re-setup or unguided manual interaction with data stored on the filesystem for the administrators of the system.
Getting started with Infinite Scale beta is pretty straightforward and takes only a few minutes to deploy. Sign up for the Infinite Scale beta now and be among the first to take ownCloud Infinite Scale for a spin!
The open platform for all your data
Infinite Scale is a multi-purpose data platform with a focus on performance, scalability, security and governance. It has been designed to provide a user-friendly, affordable roadmap for enterprises towards gaining full control over data. Infinite Scale aims to provide a foundational layer to work with data as well as to leverage its inherent value. Data access with compliance, sovereignty and security requirements play a key role in Infinite Scale.
Holger Dyroff, COO and Co-Founder, ownCloud
“Infinite Scale is a data platform that enables companies and organizations to build their own sovereign cloud data ecosystem that covers all data-related use cases. Infinite Scale brings together disparate, distributed, hybrid data sources and provides a unified, secure access layer for data governance.”
– Holger Dyroff, COO and Managing Director, ownCloud
Your very own data ecosystem
Infinite Scale is by design a data platform that empowers enterprises to build their own Sovereign Cloud Data Ecosystem addressing all data-related use cases. It promises efficient use of resources and funds, and flexibility as per changing circumstances, while setting the ground for strategic and sovereign data management.
Infinite Scale unites various distributed, hybrid data sources and offers a unified, secure access layer for data governance while simultaneously providing tools for end users like content collaboration across locations and devices. It boosts employee productivity, hands control back to the IT departments and empowers organizations to handle data efficiently.
“Economy, state, society and of course the company should be able to handle data completely independently. This requires open standards and open source code. All components must be transparent and grant full access. Operating within the EU ensures that no government agencies can access the data.”
– Holger Dyroff, COO and Managing Director, ownCloud
At the heart of Infinite Scale is a data platform that integrates storage, identity and access management, and other infrastructure components, and provides file sharing capabilities. In this way, on-premises and cloud-based environments can be merged into a single user experience.
Cloud native and built on microservices
Infinite Scale is built on cloud-native principles and is based on gRPC-based microservices instead of the LAMP stack as used in ownCloud 10. This enables unparalleled speed and easy scaling from small home user installations to multinational corporate environments.
The platform requires no external dependencies, such as a database or a web server, and can be deployed almost immediately. It can be tailored to specific solution requirements through core platform features with applications for specific business units or end users.
Spaces: Boosting digital collaboration for remote teams
Spaces is a focal feature of ownCloud Infinite Scale, and represents a new paradigm in digital team collaboration. This feature enables each project team or even each project or sub-project to create its own “Space” to work remotely and synchronously on all documents.
Spaces takes up full data ownership, eliminating the need to limit files to individual user accounts available, thanks to which files are always available to all members of a project space. Spaces can be set up by self-service and provided with individual user roles. The Spaces feature translates to a quantum leap in digital collaboration in teams, while drastically reducing IT workload.
ownCloud Infinite Scale provides separate folders for various file types, making it easier for the users to view, access and share the right files.
Migrating from ownCloud 10 to Infinite Scale
Whether or not migrating to Infinite Scale makes sense depends on the particular use case of an organization. With general availability (official release) of ownCloud Infinite Scale, it might already make sense to consider to shift regular Enterprise File Synchronization and Sharing (EFSS) use cases and collaborative editing use cases to ownCloud Infinite Scale. From general availability onwards, missing features, frameworks and third-party integrations will be added with each upcoming release.
“ownCloud Web can be used as a supplement to the Classic UI or as a standalone web interface for ownCloud 10. Both products can be used side by side in one environment, but in principle migration steps from ownCloud 10 to Infinite Scale are also possible.”
– Klaas Freitag, CTO, ownCloud
For example, content collaboration requirements could be served with ownCloud 10, while data rooms or data vaults are provided in parallel via Spaces. Using ownCloud Web enables productive work in such a hybrid setup, so that the end user does not even notice whether ownCloud 10 or Infinite Scale is already running in the background.
“A completely new ownCloud architecture creates unlimited scalability for users, data, shares and metadata. We enable open source content collaboration for every user and every company, regardless of the installation size and individual requirements – and with a performance increase of 90 percent and more.”
– Holger Dyroff, COO and Managing Director, ownCloud
