Migration from Open-WebUI to the HS-ITZ instance

The AI infrastructure of Friedrich Schiller University Jena and the Higher Education IT Service Center of Thuringia (HS-ITZ) is being continuously further developed. Against this background, the Open-WebUI test instances openwebui.test.uni-jena.de and openwebui.dev.uni-jena.de will be decommissioned on 07 October 2026.

Both instances currently use the Ollama backend of the Draco HPC cluster. This technical foundation is increasingly unable to meet the growing requirements for performance and stability. As a result, users are experiencing more frequent long response times, timeouts, and other errors that significantly limit the usability of the systems. The underlying Ollama backend is also scheduled to be phased out in the medium term.

As an alternative, the locally operated instance openwebui.test.hs-itz.deExternal link is already available. There, AI inference is provided via the new, more powerful GPUStack backend. Users benefit from improved system performance, shorter response times, optimized default settings, and access to more capable models.

Existing data from the current Open-WebUI instances can be transferred independently to the HS-ITZ instance using Open-WebUI’s export and import functions. Further guidance is available in the official Open-WebUI documentation at: docs.openwebui.comExternal link

The transition is intended to improve overall service quality and user experience. The Digital Research Services team appreciates your understanding for any inconvenience associated with the migration.