Case Study: Archdiocese of Cologne achieves secure diocese-wide collaboration with Nextcloud Hub

How Nextcloud provides an internal platform for diocese-wide collaboration with files, chat, mail and more

The Archdiocese of Cologne (Erzbistum Köln), the largest Catholic diocese in Germany, needed a secure and GDPR-compliant private cloud collaboration platform for its thousands of employees and volunteers spread over a vast geographical area. Their challenge was to improve communication and cooperation with an intuitive solution that strictly complied with data protection regulations like Schrems II, requiring them to move away from non-compliant services and find an on-premises alternative.

The archdiocese implemented Nextcloud Hub, utilizing Files, Talk, and Groupware, in a highly available on-premises environment built with the vendor's support. The solution, internally named 'Communis', provided an intuitive and scalable platform for over 4,400 active users to collaborate on files, communicate via chat and video, and manage email and calendars. Nextcloud enabled seamless integration with existing tools like ONLYOFFICE and Big Blue Button, resulting in a diocese-wide, secure, and fully GDPR-compliant collaboration platform that is planned to expand to between 6,000 and 8,000 users.

Erzbistum Köln

Dirk Röder

Head of Information Technology