If you are looking for an administered Nextcloud Hub service (or, in other words, Nextcloud-Hub-as-a-Service), we invite you to continue reading this page in which we outline all the features of our own offering, NC-Service.
What is NC-Service?
NC-Service is a service that allows you to take advantage of the full functionality of Nextcloud Hub in an environment hosted on RCA Systems' servers.
This service is optimised for small groups of people who need an advanced collaboration tool to complete their projects. By ‘small groups of people’ we are thinking of private individuals, freelancers, families, associations and small or medium-sized enterprises, across a broad spectrum of business sectors.
Several years in direct contact with entities that use Nextcloud Hub as a core day-to-day application, as well as an in-depth knowledge of the systems engineering required for its proper functioning, support and guide us in the management of this managed service.
By contracting an NC-Service instance, you will have access to a dedicated instance (i.e. with dedicated resources and for the exclusive use of your organisation or group of people) with a domain name of your choice (e.g. https://privatecloud.company.com, or provided by RCA Systems) and with a level of autonomy in the management of the application that can be total and/or partial, i.e. delegated to RCA Systems.
From day one you will have access to an instance in an optimal state of operation, which, in addition to the basic functionalities of the platform, is enriched with some features that are difficult to find on the market and/or difficult to deploy in a self-hosting context:
Thanks to integration with Nextcloud Talk's High Performance backend.
- Conduct video conferences with any number of participants, who can share audio, video and screen.
- Conduct webinars, trainings and virtual workshops with any number of guests, using a range of advanced moderation and participant sub-group organisation features.
- Record video calls, whether between colleagues, trainings or webinars. Integration with the registration system provides for recording file autoloading to the account who requested the registration, thus simplifying later editing, archiving and sharing logics.
As far as the management of your environment is concerned, we provide you with some tools and functionalities that are extremely useful for improving the operation of the service:
Visualise the behaviour of your NC-Service instance on a monitoring dashboard that historicises and graphically displays the most relevant application metrics. Analysing these metrics gives you a good understanding of how the service is being used, and thus enables you to assess its performance and design evolution strategies. Examples of such metrics are the number of files in your instance, the number of shares (counted by type) and the number of active users.
Backup and Security
The status of your NC-Service instance (i.e. code, documents and metadata) will be saved in a remote system operated by RCA Systems on a daily basis and you will be able to recover individual files and folders or perform a global restore in the event of a general data loss event.
The security of your NC-Service instance is also at the top of our priorities: on the hardware side, all systems involved in the service are housed in professional data centres and protected from unauthorised physical access. They also offer redundant connectivity and power supply to minimise the risk of service interruption. We also guarantee that all systems involved in the service are located in Europe and are operated exclusively by qualified RCA Systems personnel.
On the software side, on the other hand, the commitment is to adhere to the most stringent security standards, and to continuously update the systems. The NC-Service instance, however, can be further protected, at the customer's initiative, thanks to various techniques available and easily configurable in the application, e.g. double-factor authentication, protection against Brute Force attacks, definition of a minimum password complexity and end-to-end encryption.
Consulting
Last but not least, and of particular importance for the success of the initiative, is the coaching during the first deployment phases of the application by RCA Systems, if the customer so requests. In the first few weeks we will be available to answer your questions and to understand how we can best adapt the instance to your needs, e.g. by suggesting some migration techniques or looking for the right plugin for a given business case.
Packs
Have a look at our packs and contact us without obligation in case you are interested. We have also prepared a set of answers to frequently asked questions, which you will find below.
NC-Service Basic
Dedicated instance with your domain or subdomain of ncservice.cloud
30GB / user + 100GB group folders
Scalable Videoconferencing with Nextcloud Talk
Collaborative Editing with Nextcloud Office
Groupware (Mail, Calendar, Groupware, Deck)
Consulting (1 hour)
2 months free trial
Price from: 5€ / user / month
-20% until end of November 2024
Contact usNC-Service Full
Dedicated instance with your domain or subdomain of ncservice.cloud
50GB / user + 200GB group folders
Scalable Videoconferencing with Nextcloud Talk & Recording
Collaborative Editing with Nextcloud Office
Groupware: (Mail, Calendar, Groupware, Deck)
Consulting (3 hours)
2 months free trial
Price from: 8€ / user / month
-20% until end of November 2024
Contact us
Frequently Asked Questions
When recording is enabled in the instance, the moderator(s) may start recording an active call or video call at any time. Participants in the call will receive a notification alerting them that the call is being recorded. Users who join later will also be able to see that a recording is in progress, and depending on the general configuration, give their consent or not.
Once the call is finished, the recording server sends the recording file (in webm format) to the moderator who can decide either to share it directly in the room or to leave it where it was uploaded in his personal Nextcloud area.
When installing Nextcloud Talk, the internal signaling server is used by default and calls or video calls are made via a direct connection between participants. When making calls with 2-3 participants this type of connection can be effective, but as soon as we go above this threshold it ceases to be so because the incoming and outgoing number of connections on the user's device explodes.
This is why the High Performance Backend is introduced which, in addition to exposing an optimised signaling server, also adds a media streaming server which optimises the quantity and amount of incoming and outgoing streams by managing them centrally. In addition, other components are added that enable the participation in calls to users connecting from networks with particularly restrictive security levels (TURN server).
The NC-Service instances use a fully capable High Performance Engine, also operated by RCA Systems, which enables calls and video calls with up to hundreds participants.
Yes, access to the appstore will be enabled in case you want to install some apps that are not yet in your instance.
However, the ability to install apps carries risks, in the most extreme cases it may even prevent access to the server temporarily. In addition, one must be careful about the space available on the Nextcloud installation partition as some apps may require an amount of space that is not available in our instances (e.g. the Translate app). The advice is to contact us in case of doubt before proceeding.
Access to the app store can also be completely disabled: simply request this through your usual support channel.
Yes, you can use your own domain to access your dedicated NC-Service instance, e.g. privatecloud.company.com.
RCA Systems will provide the IP address to which to associate the DNS registry and, on request, can also manage all TLS certificate operations, using the Let's Encrypt system.
If, on the other hand, the customer is already in possession of a TLS certificate and the relative key, it can be used by sending it to RCA Systems for application in the system.
Subscription termination can be requested through the usual support channel and with a notice period depending on the duration and type of subscription.
When we start using a new application, many questions arise, e.g. how to migrate documents from another platform or whether or not a specific functionality is present in the product. Furthermore, in a change management perspective, certain actions and processes that are part of the routine will have to be carried out in a separate way. Remaining in the context of Nextcloud we can ask ourselves for example how to create a public conversation room for distance learning: how do I enable the lobby? What kind of access will I give users by default?
Aware of this situation, RCA Systems offers a set number of consulting hours in which we will get together and try to answer your questions, make some recommendations and accompany you at a critical stage of application deployment.
Your instance will be copied in its entirety once a day to a backup system located in a different data centre from the main data centre. This copy will contain documents, metadata (e.g. whether a document has been shared and with whom) and the software needed to restore the instance to another system.
If you want to recover a file or folder individually or if you want to recover the instance in its entirety at some point in the past, you can contact us and we will take care of the recovery following your instructions. The retention period for copies is 14 days. The restoration time will depend mainly on the quantity and size of the files to be recovered.
In the case of loss of metadata (e.g.: I have lost a Deck board), unfortunately it is generally not possible to restore on time: it will therefore be necessary to restore the metadata to a photograph taken before the event that caused the data loss. Even in this case, however, we invite you to contact us to assess the most suitable solution for your case.
Before answering your question, we would like to clarify that in this case we are referring to server-side encryption, not end-to-end encryption.
And now the answer. No, encryption of the files you will use in our instances is not enabled. The reason is that encryption involves a number of technical difficulties in managing the instance. If this is a requirement in your case, please contact us and we will consider enabling encryption in your instance.
However, we emphasise that one of the main reasons for enabling server-side encryption, i.e. using a third-party provider for Nextcloud primary storage, does not apply in our case because RCA Systems is the exclusive owner or operator of all storage systems involved in the service.
Your data will be in systems owned by RCA Systems or rented from trusted European cloud providers.
At present the main system is located in a data centre operated by the company R Cable in A Coruña, Spain with the backup systems in our offices in A Coruña and the disaster recovery system in the data centre park of Hetzner GmbH FSN1 located in Falkenstein, Germany.
This may change, but we guarantee that your data will always be located in European data centres and operated by companies that comply with the GDPR regulation. In addition, we will take care to update this section in case of changes.
RCA Systems operates and maintains all the main subsystems that make up the service: not only, therefore, the Nextcloud server itself but also the related systems such as the Full Text Search cluster, the videoconferencing system or the collaborative edition engine.
Increase
Yes, the storage quota can be increased at any time.
Simply contact RCA Systems support via your usual support channel and explain your new storage requirements. RCA Systems will contact the customer and outline the conditions and costs of a possible expansion.
Reduction
It is also possible to reduce the storage quota, but it is more technically complicated. Again, the customer can contact RCA Systems for feedback on the feasibility of the operation.