HERABIT launches its fully sovereign S3 cloud storage service with Cubbit

Overview

Challenges

• Address the rising demand for fully European, S3-compatible storage
• Stay competitive vs. hyperscalers while keeping high service levels
• Maintain full data control and flexibility

Solution

Created its own S3 cloud storage offering by deploying DS3 Composer (2 PB) across its 3 Italian data centres

Use cases

• Backup
• Long-term data archiving
• AI data lakes

Results

• Expected cost saving of 25-50% vs. traditional object storage
• 100% sovereign offering for the Italian market
• Multiple service levels from a single S3 platform
• Low IT management overheads

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HERABIT is the digital company of Hera Group, which S&P ranks among the top 1% of multi- and water-utility firms worldwide. The company operates three highly redundant, interconnected data centres in Imola, Siziano, and Santa Lucia di Piave, and manages more than 321,000 km of cumulative ultra-broadband fibre.

HERABIT provides data and voice communications, hybrid multicloud, cybersecurity, and smart solutions for enterprises and institutions. Today, it serves around 4,000 enterprise and SME customers across sectors, including IT, media and entertainment, banking, and manufacturing.

After successfully adopting Cubbit’s technology internally in 2023, HERABIT decided to bring the benefits to its customers and launch its own sovereign S3 cloud storage service for enterprises.

Challenge

HERABIT needed a storage solution that could meet growing demand for S3-compatible services — integrating easily with customers’ existing environments, without requiring changes to established processes.

At the same time, the company needed to remain competitive in a market shaped by hyperscalers and international providers, where security, flexibility, and cost efficiency had become essential.

Before Cubbit, HERABIT used traditional on-premises object storage solutions. While these ensured control, they were becoming increasingly costly, rigid, and complex to scale. In some cases, limited S3 compatibility also made it harder to respond to evolving market demand.

Customer expectations around sovereignty were also increasing, with more organisations looking for regional solutions that could ensure full control over data without compromising on performance or service quality.

Solution

Building on its positive internal experience with Cubbit, HERABIT chose to deploy DS3 Composer across its three Italian data centres, with an initial capacity of 2 petabytes dedicated to business customers and further expansion planned from 2026.

This allowed HERABIT to create and offer its own geo-distributed S3 cloud storage service, fully delivered from infrastructure under its direct control in Italy.

With DS3 Composer, HERABIT can provide multiple service levels from a single intuitive platform, tailoring SLAs and pricing to different workload requirements. Key use cases include backup, long-term data archiving, and data lakes for AI systems.

The agreement also strengthens HERABIT’s market position. As part of the partnership, the company became Cubbit’s preferred infrastructure partner in the Emilia-Romagna region, helping establish a model that can be replicated in other local and international contexts.

Result

With Cubbit, HERABIT has launched a fully sovereign Italian S3 storage offering that combines low latency, high resilience, data sovereignty, competitive costs, and reduced environmental impact.

Data is encrypted, fragmented, and replicated across local nodes, while remaining entirely within Italy and inside HERABIT’s infrastructure (3 data centres, 321,000 km of fibre network). Operationally, the platform simplifies service delivery. HERABIT can manage multiple service tiers from a single interface, reducing operational complexity and lowering management overheads.

From an economic perspective, HERABIT expects 25–50% lower costs than equivalent traditional object storage configurations, varying by workload profile and service tier.

Overall, the solution gives HERABIT a way to be competitive against hyperscalers while providing high sovereignty, security, control, and service quality.