The release of the Nextcloud Hub 24 platform is presented, which provides a self-sufficient solution for organizing collaboration between employees of enterprises and teams developing various projects. At the same time, the Nextcloud 24 cloud platform underlying the Nextcloud Hub was published, which allows you to deploy cloud storage with support for synchronization and data exchange, which provides the ability to view and edit data from any device anywhere in the network (using a web interface or WebDAV). The Nextcloud server can be deployed on any hosting that supports PHP scripts and provides access to SQLite, MariaDB/MySQL or PostgreSQL. Nextcloud sources are distributed under the AGPL license.
In terms of tasks to be solved, Nextcloud Hub resembles Google Docs and Microsoft 365, but allows you to deploy a fully controlled collaboration infrastructure that operates on its own servers and is not tied to external cloud services. Nextcloud Hub combines several open add-on applications over the Nextcloud cloud platform into a single environment, allowing you to work together with office documents, files and information for planning tasks and events. The platform also includes add-ons for email access, messaging, video conferencing and chats.
User authentication can be performed both locally and through integration with LDAP / Active Directory, Kerberos, IMAP and Shibboleth / SAML 2.0, including using two-factor authentication, SSO (Single-sign-on) and linking new systems to an account. entries by QR code. Version control allows you to track changes to files, comments, sharing rules, and tags.
The main components of the Nextcloud Hub platform:
- Files - organization of storage, synchronization, sharing and exchange of files. Access can be made both via the Web and using client software for desktop and mobile systems. Provides advanced features such as full-text search, attaching files when posting comments, selective access control, creation of password-protected download links, integration with external storage (FTP, CIFS/SMB, SharePoint, NFS, Amazon S3, Google Drive, Dropbox, and etc.).
- Flow - optimizes business processes by automating the performance of typical work, such as converting documents to PDF, sending messages to chats when new files are uploaded to certain directories, automatic tagging. It is possible to create your own handlers that perform actions in relation to certain events.
- Nextcloud Office is a built-in collaborative editing tool for documents, spreadsheets and presentations, developed jointly with Collabora. Support for integration with OnlyOffice, Collabora Online, MS Office Online Server and Hancom office packages is provided.
- Photos is an image gallery that makes it easy to find, share, and navigate a collaborative collection of photos and images. Supports ranking photos by time, place, tags and frequency of viewing.
- Calendar is a scheduler calendar that allows you to coordinate meetings, schedule chats and video conferences. Integration with iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, Linux, Outlook, and Thunderbird groupware is provided. Loading events from external resources that support the WebCal protocol is supported.
- Mail is a joint address book and web interface for working with e-mail. It is possible to bind several accounts to one inbox. Encryption of letters and attachment of digital signatures based on OpenPGP are supported. It is possible to synchronize the address book using CalDAV.
- Talk is a messaging and web conferencing system (chat, audio and video). There is support for groups, the ability to share screen content, and support for SIP gateways for integration with conventional telephony.
- Nextcloud Backup is a solution for decentralized backup storage.
Key innovations of Nextcloud Hub 24:
- Migration tools are provided to allow the user to export all their data in the form of a single archive and import it on another server. The export includes user and profile settings, data from applications (Groupware, Files), calendars, comments, favorites, etc. Migration support has not yet been added to all applications, but a special API has been proposed for extracting application-specific data, which will be gradually implemented. Migration tools allow the user to be independent of the site and simplify the transfer of their information, for example, the user can quickly transfer data to his home server at any time.
- Changes have been added to the storage and file sharing subsystem (Nextcloud Files) aimed at improving performance and increasing scalability. Added Enterprise Search API for indexing content stored in Nextcloud by third party search engines. Selective management of sharing permissions is provided, for example, users can be given separate rights to edit, delete, and download data in shared directories. Share-by-mail functionality provides temporary token generation to verify the owner of an email address instead of using a fixed password.
Up to 4 times reduced load on the database when performing typical operations. When displaying the contents of directories in the interface, the number of queries to the database is reduced by 75%. The number of database accesses when working with a user profile has also been significantly reduced. Improved efficiency of caching avatars, which are now generated in only two sizes. Optimized storage of user activity information. Added built-in profiling system to identify bottlenecks. Reduced number of connections to the Redis server. Speed up quota processing, token handling, WebDAV access, and user state reading. Extended use of caching to speed up access to resources. Reduced page loading time.
The administrator is given the opportunity to define an arbitrary time for performing background work, which can be moved to a time with minimal activity. Added the ability to move the generation and resizing operations of thumbnails to a separate microservice launched in Docker. Storage of data related to the processing of user activity (Activities) can be moved to a separate database.
- Improved user interface for collaboration components (Nextcloud Groupware). In the calendar-scheduler, buttons for accepting/rejecting invitations have been added, allowing you to change the participation status from the web interface. In the mail client, the function of sending messages according to a schedule and canceling a just sent letter has been added.
- In the Nextcloud Talk messaging system, work has been done to increase performance and added support for reactions that allow you to express your attitude to the message using Emoji. A Media tab has been added that displays and searches all media files sent in a chat. Improved desktop integration - the ability to send a response from a pop-up notification of a new message is provided and it is easier to receive incoming calls. The version for mobile devices provides the ability to select the audio output device. When sharing a screen, support has been added to broadcast to other users not only the image, but also the system sound.
- The integrated office suite (Collabora Online) offers a new interface with a tabbed menu (top menu items are displayed in the form of changing toolbars).
- Collaboration tools provide automatic locking of files during their editing in Text and Collabora Online office applications (locking prevents other clients from making changes to the file being edited), if desired, files can be locked and unlocked manually.
- The Nextcloud Text editor now supports tables and information cards. Added the ability to directly upload images via the drag&drop interface. Provided auto-completion when inserting Emoji.
- The Nextcloud Collectives program, which provides an interface for building a knowledge base and linking documents to groups, now has the ability to flexibly configure access rights and provide access to multiple pages via a single link.
Source: opennet.ru