Available capacities for each storage type after 1 January 2027

The respective storage can be used throughout the entire duration of the employment or student relationship. On the termination date of the relationship with VUT, a 30-day grace period begins, after which data from personal storage and mailboxes will be removed.
For technical reasons, capacities can only be increased in steps of 10GB, 20GB, 50GB, 100GB, 200GB, 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, 5TB.

Implementation timeline

In connection with the new pricing policies of Microsoft and Google, the university is compelled to introduce mechanisms for the long-term sustainable operation of these services. Although university leadership managed to negotiate preferential conditions in the form of a temporary capacity increase for 2025 and 2026, in the long term the university must reduce stored data on both services or ensure funding for above-limit capacity usage. CIS VUT has been entrusted with implementing the relevant technical measures. These measures have been designed to minimize disruption to current service usage while providing users with sufficient time (one year) to review stored data and, if necessary, migrate it to other storage or solutions.

To introduce technical measures in the form of limits, a timeline of more than one year was chosen, consisting of the following phases:

Frequently Asked Questions

Questions about the changes

• Until now the limits were very permissive; why is it necessary to introduce restrictions now?

  Previous conditions for using cloud storage at VUT mirrored the usage terms of the respective providers. However, in 2023 there was a significant change in Google’s terms, followed by Microsoft. University leadership negotiated preferential, temporary capacity increases with both providers for 2025 and 2026, but these apply only for a limited time. This period must be used by the university to reduce stored data and to establish a long-term sustainable model for operating cloud services.

• What would happen if storage restrictions were not introduced?

  If the relevant restrictions were not introduced, there would be a risk of exceeding the total capacity available to the university. This would mean that all services in Google Suite or Microsoft 365 for all university users would switch to read-only mode.

• When and by whom was the above approach decided?

  During January 2025, CIS, in cooperation with the CIO and other members of leadership, prepared several variants of a possible approach. These variants were further elaborated in the following months and then discussed in various fora. Comments were gradually incorporated, resulting in the final solution.

  Key meetings took place in the following fora:

  • 18. 2. 2025 – meeting of faculty systems integrators
  • 5. 3. 2025 – meeting of secretaries
  • 10. 3. 2025 – rectorate leadership
  • 28. 3. 2025 – VUT Information System Council, VUT Technology Council
  • 14. 5. 2025 – VUT Network Administrators Council
  • 20. 6. 2025 – VUT Academic Senate
  • 1. 9. 2025 – VUT leadership, decision on the final form of rules and procedure

• As an alumnus I still use the account and email from my studies. Will it continue to work?

  Unfortunately not. Previously, cloud service licensing terms allowed retaining access to the account and email after graduation, but due to pricing policy changes this is no longer possible. In line with prudent management, VUT cannot fund services unrelated to work or study activity. Therefore, from 1. 12. 2025 alumni with active accounts will be informed gradually, and from 1. 03. 2026 the process of deleting data from personal storage and deactivating accounts and mailboxes will begin.

About storage in general

• What can the capacity of university and cloud storage be used for?

  Cloud and other VUT storage is intended solely for storing data related to work, research or study activities at VUT. It may not be used for personal data or files unrelated to VUT, such as holiday photos or videos.

• What are the consequences for me if I exceed the capacity limit?

  If you exceed the capacity on your personal storage, you will not lose any data, but the storage will switch to read-only mode — you will not be able to save new data to it. Full access will be restored once the size of stored data drops below the set limit. After 1.8.2026, team storage that exceeds capacity will be disabled and, after the grace period expires, data will be removed.

• Are there additional options for storing data?

  The options depend on the nature of the data. As a member of CESNET z.s.p.o., VUT can use the National Data Infrastructure.

  For smaller projects, the OwnCloud service can be used, where each user can obtain 100GB.

  For storing up to 2TB on an S3 storage, capacity can be requested via a simple form (Registration button) after signing in through the VUT unified authentication. The request is usually approved within a short time.

  For projects requiring larger capacity, individual terms must be arranged.

• What happens to data after the end of studies or employment?

  In personal storage and the mailbox, after the end of studies or employment your data will remain available on your personal drive and in your mailbox for a 30-day grace period. After the grace period expires, the data will be irreversibly deleted. You will receive a VUT message notification when the grace period starts.

  For team storage, data remains preserved even after the end of studies or employment.

• How is data backed up on cloud services?

  Data is backed up directly by the cloud service providers, typically only for their internal needs (disaster recovery). A formal guarantee of the availability of these backups is generally not part of the terms of service, both for Microsoft and for Google.

  At present, VUT does not perform any additional backups on the above services.

Personal and team storage and capacity increases

• Where can I find the used capacity on individual storage types?

  This information will be available from the end of 2025 on the VUT intraportal in the section dedicated to Cloud Services.

  Another option is to view it via Microsoft OneDrive or Google Drive by visiting https://vutbr-my.sharepoint.com/ or https://drive.google.com/drive and checking the bottom-left corner of the browser (in some cases it may be necessary to scroll the left-hand menu content and possibly reload/refresh the entire page).

  
  

  

  

  
  
  

• Why can personal storage be increased at double the price; what is the difference between personal and team storage?

  Personal storage is intended primarily for storing temporary files, a user’s system settings and user profile. This content should only very rarely be shared with other users. After the end of studies or employment, data in the user’s personal storage is deleted. For this reason, only the minimum technical capacity is provided for all users on personal storage, and it is not desirable for it to be further increased at the expense of team storage.

  For storing data such as work documents, project results, measurements, presentations, etc., team storage is intended, the contents of which are preserved for the entire existence of the respective team. If data on team storage needs to be accessible to only one person, storage with a single member can be created. The capacity of team storage can be increased as needed.

• How can the capacity of team storage be increased and who can do it?

  The capacity of team storage (so-called reserved capacity) can be increased up to 10TB. However, increasing the reserved capacity is subject to co-financing of the operational costs of the respective storage type according to the valid price list.

  The reserved capacity can be increased by any authorising officer (“příkazce operace”) entitled to perform “operations” type actions within VUT’s Electronic Financial Control (EFK). It is not necessary for this person to be a member of the respective team storage or to have access to its data. Capacity increases are performed via an intraportal module — the module will be made available by the end of 2026.

• Why can capacity increases only be performed in fixed steps?

  This follows from technical limitations on the part of cloud service providers, where APIs for automated disk space management do not allow direct assignment of arbitrary capacity values for individual storage types. Capacity settings must therefore be handled by assigning users to predefined capacity profiles.

• Disks are cheap — why is storing data in cloud storage so expensive?

  Reliable and secure storage of data that must be permanently accessible is a sophisticated IT discipline, and its implementation complexity cannot be compared to disk capacities in solutions intended, for example, for home use. Any data storage that is to be permanently accessible must be implemented using advanced technical means in the form of disk array infrastructure, typically distributed across multiple locations. Backup infrastructure also imposes substantial demands, as it must be able to accommodate several copies of primary data. The entire hardware infrastructure must be renewed on regular cycles due to technology obsolescence and growing capacity requirements.

  We therefore recommend carefully considering data storage methods in projects — especially whether it is truly necessary to store large, temporary-character data on such expensive storage, or whether a cheaper alternative would be more suitable.

• Why do the services cost what they cost; is the price guaranteed?

  The prices for increasing reserved capacity correspond to CIS’s cost prices at which services are purchased from cloud providers. These prices are the result of a public procurement and are fixed for at least one year. However, given the unpredictable pricing policies of cloud service operators, it cannot be guaranteed that they will remain unchanged.

Mailboxes

• Is it possible to increase mailbox capacity?

  Mailbox capacity can be increased in the same way as for other storage types.

• How do shared capacity limits between the email mailbox and the Google personal drive work?

  Google services do not allow separate limits to be set for the personal drive and the mailbox; therefore, the Google mailbox capacity is shared with the personal Google Drive. Increasing the capacity of the Google mailbox must be done by increasing the capacity of the personal Google Drive.