IT Supporting Teaching at LifeTech ITS Academy in Trieste

LifeTech ITS Academy in Trieste has recently stood out at the national level for implementing a modern desktop and graphics-workstation virtualization infrastructure, designed to radically innovate the approach to technical and scientific education. The project - developed by Spring Firm S.r.l., in collaboration with H3C for part of the hardware supply - marks a turning point for post-secondary training, making the learning experience more accessible, efficient, and flexible.

The solution addresses the growing need to offer personalized, flexible, and secure learning environments. By adopting VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) and virtualizing graphics workstations, students can access their work tools, data, and software from anywhere - on campus or at home - ensuring instructional continuity and the possibility of asynchronous study. The project enables the use of advanced hardware resources (CPU/GPU), centrally configured on H3C Uniserv R4900 G6 servers equipped with NVIDIA Ampere A16 cards and NVMe storage, and shared efficiently among multiple users. Classroom terminals thus become intelligent access points, adaptable to each user’s profile.

The critical issues of the traditional approach to IT for education - such as low flexibility, high upgrade costs, limited security, and rapid obsolescence of workstations - have been completely overcome. The implemented infrastructure makes it possible to profile each student, monitor network activity, and ensure automatic backups and timely updates, in full compliance with current regulations on cybersecurity and data protection. Centralization also brings a drastic simplification of maintenance operations and a significant extension of the workstations’ lifecycle.

Spring Firm S.r.l. led the entire project - from the strategic and preliminary analysis phases to the definition of the technical architecture and system installation - ensuring full integration with Microsoft Active Directory for centralized control. H3C contributed cutting-edge server infrastructure capable of supporting a high number of concurrent users with strong graphics performance.

The initiative has been welcomed enthusiastically by both students and faculty and has also attracted media and institutional attention, as evidenced by the official launch of the “Biotech Quality Specialist” program at LifeTech ITS Academy, which highlighted the role of new technologies in education. The words of Friuli Venezia Giulia (FVG) Regional Councillor for Education, Alessia Rosolen, confirmed the central role of ITS institutes as a “third pathway” between school and university, capable of responding concretely to labor market needs, with post-diploma employment rates above 90%.

Beyond enabling LifeTech ITS Academy to equip itself with state-of-the-art technologies aligned with its development plans, this project fits into a broader framework in which other ITS institutes can leverage the same infrastructure, sharing costs with a view to cooperation among training bodies, rationalization and containment of investments, and a systemic approach to innovation.

In this context, Spring Firm S.r.l. and H3C reaffirm their roles as key players in the digital transformation of the education sector, helping to create a learning future that is more inclusive, modern, and aligned with current teaching methodologies.

It should be noted that the project was made possible thanks to funding under Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) - MISSION 4 “Education and Research”, COMPONENT 1 “Enhancement of Education Services: from Nursery Schools to Universities”, INVESTMENT 1.5 “Development of the Tertiary Professional Education System (ITS)”.