ITBox is the central storage infrastructure for research at the Politecnico di Torino.
It is designed to provide reliable, scalable, and secure data storage services to support scientific research, technological development, and Open Science principles, addressing diverse needs ranging from everyday data management to the implementation of high-performance applications and workflows.
The goal of ITBox is to offer researchers an institutional storage environment that ensures service continuity, data protection, and regulatory compliance, reducing reliance on external or non-compliant solutions. The infrastructure is designed to support the entire research data lifecycle: from production and analysis, to sharing, and long-term preservation, ensuring data replication, resilience, and business continuity.
ITBox provides three main types of services:
- Network drives via NFS and SAMBA shares: For network-shared drives and integration with computing environments.
- High-performance block storage via dedicated iSCSI LUNs: For applications, databases, and services that require high-performance block storage.
- “Click and share” collaboration services – Nextcloud for Research: For web-based file and folder sharing, including with external users, similar to Dropbox.
- Development and versioning services – GitLab: For code, technical documentation, and development workflows.
| REQUIREMENT | NFS/SAMBA | LUN iSCSI | Nextcloud | GitLab |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shared research datasets | ✔️ | ✔️ | X | X |
| Simultaneous file access | ✔️ | X | ✔️ | X |
| Servers, VMs, clusters, HPC | ✔️ | ✔️ | X | X |
| Applications and databases | X | ✔️ | X | X |
| Code and documentation | X | X | X | ✔️. |
The University’s private cloud infrastructure, which underpins ITBox, enables:
- Faster startup times for research projects
- Ensured data security, integrity, and compliance
- Cost optimization compared to commercial solutions or public cloud services
- Consolidation of departmental workstations
- Regulatory compliance (NIS2), data replication, and business continuity
For each research group or project, it is possible to request up to 3 TB of storage within the ITBox services (NFS/SAMBA, iSCSI, Nextcloud), based on the declared operational needs.
For projects with higher requirements or specific needs in terms of capacity, performance, or access priority, it is possible to purchase dedicated disks or hardware to integrate into the ITBox infrastructure. In these cases, the storage is provided as a priority resource for the project while maintaining the same guarantees of reliability, security, and management offered by the service.
Requests for advanced sizing are evaluated by the Cybersecurity & IT for Research service, in coordination with the project’s scientific supervisor, to define the most suitable solution from both a technical and organizational perspective.
