GARR and Cubbit launch the first federated geo-distributed storage network for universities and research institutions in Italy

Overview

Industry

National Research and Education Network

Challenges

• Overcome technological lock-in and dependency on third-party infrastructure
• Guarantee service continuity even in the event of failure across one or more sites
• Enable secure data sharing between diverse research groups and institutions

Solution

Integration of DS3 Composer across GARR data centres in the Italian cities of Bologna, Rome, and Bari to create the first federated geo-distributed storage network for Italian universities and research institutions, operated entirely on-premises

Use cases

• Immutable backup
• Disaster recovery
• Long-term archiving of scientific data

Results

• First federated geo-distributed network of its kind in Europe
• Full data sovereignty with exclusive, segregated access for each institution
• Keep data always accessible, even in the event of failure across one or more sites
• Enabling technology for NIS2, GDPR, and national ACN requirements

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GARR is Italy's research and education network. With around 24,000 kilometres of fibre, more than 1,000 connected sites, and a community of around three million users, it plays a central role in Italy's academic and scientific system. Alongside high-performance connectivity, GARR develops and manages key digital services for the transfer and storage of large volumes of data, as well as for the real-time monitoring of networks and services.

In a context where scientific data is growing constantly, and its strategic and social value demands increasingly reliable and sovereign infrastructure, GARR and Cubbit have launched the pilot phase of a new storage model — more resilient, independent, and built around full data sovereignty — to meet the practical needs of the Italian scientific community.

Challenge

GARR manages storage to support its network services and the activities of the Italian scientific community. The data involved often has high scientific, strategic, and social value: it must remain available over time, be shared securely across heterogeneous research groups, and be managed in line with increasingly stringent regulatory requirements, including those issued by Italy's National Cybersecurity Agency (ACN).

Previous solutions guaranteed the reliability of individual components, but lacked a real geographic dimension: service continuity was limited to perimeters of a few kilometres — insufficient to withstand the failure of an entire site. Public cloud was not a viable option: relying on external infrastructure would have meant losing direct control over data, a non-negotiable requirement for a public network serving national research.

Solution

To address these requirements, GARR integrated DS3 Composer — Cubbit's software-defined object storage — across its data centres in the Italian cities of Bologna, Rome, and Bari, creating the first federated geo-distributed storage network for universities and research institutions in Italy, operated entirely on-premises.

By combining Cubbit's natively distributed object storage technology with GARR's high-speed network, the solution provides the scientific community with a storage system capable of keeping data continuously available and delivering high performance, even in the event of failures affecting one or more sites. Data is encrypted, fragmented, and distributed across multiple geographic locations — never exposed in full.

Compatibility with the S3 standard allows the system to be integrated into the workflows already in use at universities and research institutions, without disrupting existing tools and processes. Key use cases include immutable backup repositories, disaster recovery, and the long-term storage of partially processed datasets for analysis and predictive reporting.

The most innovative element is the federated model: universities and research institutions can join the network by contributing their own hardware resources, taking an active role in the infrastructure. Each institution retains exclusive, segregated access to its own data, with the ability to selectively authorise sharing for specific projects or datasets — including with research groups outside the GARR network.

Through a single intuitive interface, the platform makes it possible to activate multiple flexible service tiers according to the value and type of data involved, and each institution can manage its own storage spaces, access rights, projects, and configurations autonomously — simplifying day-to-day operations, reducing the burden on internal teams, and freeing up time and resources for research activities.

Result

With DS3 Composer, GARR has created the first federated geo-distributed storage network in Europe dedicated to the research community. The infrastructure runs entirely on-premises, independent of third-party providers, with technology enabling compliance with NIS2, GDPR, and national ACN requirements.

In the first phase, the system is operational across the data centres in the Italian cities of Bologna, Rome, and Bari with an initial capacity of 1 petabyte. In the second phase, the solution will be extended to all eight GARR data centres distributed across Italy. Universities and research institutions can already join, contributing their own hardware resources and benefiting from a sovereign, resilient infrastructure fully aligned with the requirements of Italian research.