# Concepts

Nextcloud Workspace is a unified productivity suite comprising several native applications designed to work together.

## Applications

* **Nextcloud Files:** High-performance cloud storage that provides 1 TB of shared storage per user. It includes features such as file versioning, large file support, and File Drop for secure, password-protected uploads from external clients.
* **Nextcloud Office (Collabora):** A full-featured online office suite embedded directly in the browser. It enables real-time collaborative editing of text documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.
* **Nextcloud Talk:** A professional unified communication tool offering team chat and video conferencing. For broadcast-only webinars, it scales to several hundred viewers.
* **Nextcloud Email:** A built-in webmail client that integrates with your existing email provider using IMAP and OAuth2. It features AI-supported writing, replying, and summarising capabilities.
* **Calendar and Contacts:** Integrated scheduling and address book applications that integrate with Nextcloud Talk and Nextcloud Mail, allowing for centralised organisation and meeting management.
* **Nextcloud AI Assistant:** A privacy-first AI tool powered by the [<mark style="color:blue;">IONOS Cloud AI Model Hub</mark>](https://docs.ionos.com/cloud/ai/ai-model-hub). It allows users to generate text, summarise, and translate content. Because it runs on IONOS infrastructure, corporate data is never exposed to third parties.

## User management

User and access management in Nextcloud Workspace operates across two levels: workspace provisioning in the DCD, and user administration within the Nextcloud application.

* **Permissions:** Only the contract-owner and contract admins in the IONOS Cloud Data Center Designer (DCD) can provision new workspaces and define the initial administrative email address.
* **Seat scaling:** Licences (seats) are managed centrally in the DCD. Administrators can increase the total number of paid seats to match organisational needs.

{% hint style="info" %}
**Note:** Currently, seat reductions are not supported through the DCD.
{% endhint %}

* **Enterprise identity integration:** Within the Nextcloud environment, administrators can connect existing corporate directories using enterprise standards such as LDAP, Active Directory, SAML, and OpenID Connect (OIDC).

## File access

Files can be accessed through the following methods:

* Web browser
* Desktop sync clients (Windows, macOS, Linux)
* Mobile apps (iOS, Android)
* WebDAV protocol for direct integration with operating system file explorers
* External storage mounts (mapped from third-party repositories)

## Security

Nextcloud Workspace is designed around the principles of European data sovereignty.

* **Data sovereignty:** All data is hosted exclusively within IONOS-owned data centers. This guarantees strict GDPR compliance and ensures that corporate data is legally and physically protected from extraterritorial access requests (such as the [<mark style="color:blue;">US CLOUD Act</mark>](https://docs.ionos.com/cloud/support/general-information/glossary-of-terms#us-clarifying-lawful-overseas-use-of-data-cloud-act)).
* **Authentication and access control:** Access to workspaces is secured by two-factor authentication (2FA) and supports advanced threat protections, including built-in DDoS mitigation and antivirus scanning for uploaded files.

## Integration ecosystem

Nextcloud Workspace integrates with your existing IT landscape:

* **Bring Your Own Mail (BYOM):** Connect your existing email provider using IMAP and OAuth2. For example, IONOS Mail or third-party mail servers.

## Shared responsibility model

Nextcloud Workspace operates under a shared responsibility model — a common standard for managed cloud services. This collaborative approach guarantees that you retain absolute control and ownership over your data and workspace environment, while IONOS takes care of the underlying infrastructure, security, and platform maintenance.

| **Responsibility Area**                                  | **IONOS Cloud** | **Customer** |
| -------------------------------------------------------- | :-------------: | :----------: |
| **Physical infrastructure and data center security**     |        ✅        |              |
| **Platform availability and uptime**                     |        ✅        |              |
| **Application security patching and version upgrades**   |        ✅        |              |
| **Infrastructure compliance**                            |        ✅        |              |
| **User creation, management, and offboarding**           |                 |       ✅      |
| **Password and access policies within the workspace**    |                 |       ✅      |
| **SSO / LDAP / AD configurations**                       |                 |       ✅      |
| **Data stored within the workspace and data governance** |                 |       ✅      |
| **Sharing permissions and folder structures**            |                 |       ✅      |
| **Third-party integrations (Example: IMAP or SMTP)**     |                 |       ✅      |

For more information on the day-to-day usage and feature configuration of your workspace, please visit the [<mark style="color:blue;">official Nextcloud documentation</mark>](https://nextcloud.com/support/).


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