Open source cloud storage owncloud will launch 5.0 beta release

To provide a free alternative to users, 3 years ago, Frank Karlitschek developed open source version of the file storage, synchronization and sharing software package owncloud. Currently, the package has been officially launched in 4 versions, supporting 42 languages. In addition to the basic functions of Dropbox or Box.net, owncloud also supports functions such as contacts, calendars, etc. Now, Owncloud has released a 5.0 beta release, which is expected to be launched in a few weeks ' time.

Users can use owncloud to build a cloud server that can be completely controlled by themselves. Packages can be installed anywhere the user specifies, and their access control policies are entirely user-defined. After installing the Owncloud client, the user can automatically sync the contents of the client's documents and photos, such as mobile, desktop and so on, which is safe and convenient.

In addition, owncloud can connect to third party storage services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, and establish a read-write connection to help users back up their data on the public cloud, or to take owncloud as the SSO (single sign-on) site for all of their storage services.

The new version of Owncloud 5.0 features and interfaces with a number of enhancements, integration capabilities, performance, and usability improvements.

interface, the new version of the owncloud compressed the control area, leaving more space for the user's data display. In addition, the new version of Owncloud provides a gallery feature that can rival the competitor, offering more sharing options. Address Book and calendar applications will also be updated during this upgrade. Owncloud also provides rich browsing capabilities for stored documents, including video playback applications, PDF browsers, and more.

The owncloud administrator can connect to multiple background account databases with the installation instance. Including UNIX user accounts, LDAP, and built-in Owncloud account system. The upcoming version 5.0 also supports multiple background systems, enabling users to use UNIX, LDAP, and owncloud at the same time, enabling owncloud to easily integrate into existing infrastructure.

In addition, users can choose to replace the account name with the display name. For example, an LDAP user with an account of "cn=scott,ou=people,dc=abc,dc=com" can use "Zhang" as the display name, which increases usability.

Owncloud also modifies the file caching mechanism, which reduces the number of client round trips to the server, and in some cases the cache speed can be raised to 5 times times the original.

The 5.0 version of Owncloud also has a built-in Lucene Full-text search feature that doesn't even have some proprietary software. Full-Text Search enables users to find files based on content rather than just file names, which is useful.

Owncloud now has a version control feature that allows users to track file changes. The new version of Owncloud 5 will introduce a "trash bin" to provide a file removal recovery mechanism.

Owncloud's goal is to support all the mainstream platforms, for the previous discovery of the Windows platform "UTF8" file name caused the failure problem, version 5.0 of owncloud for Windows developed a file system abstraction layer, to solve this problem.

In addition to the free open source version, Owncloud also uses commercial editions for business users, Commercial edition owncloud

also supports databases such as Ms SQL, Oracle, access to groupware, directory service applications, etc. According to its founder Karlitschek estimates, the current owncloud active user is about 800,000, which has not yet included a commercial version from owncloud.com to buy business users.

Owncloud supports HTML5 applications, so its scalability is strong. Currently there are dozens of apps in the Owncloud app directory, which is already the most functional in this kind of open source solution.

Karlitschek's future plan is to integrate more products, including SharePoint and Atlassian. icloud and Google Drive, currently used by Apple and Android users, are a relatively open cloud from the user's point of view, Karlitschek insists that owncloud need to integrate all cloud services more than Dropbox, Box.net and so on further, so that users really get rid of the limitations of various cloud solutions.

If you are interested in using owncloud to build your own cloud services, try downloading it here.