Available capacities on individual types of storage after Oct 1, 2026 (free of charge), or after Mar 1, 2027 (finally)

The use of the respective storages is possible for the duration of the entire employment or student relationship, whereas on the date of termination of the relationship with VUT, a 30-day protection period begins, after which data from personal storages and mailboxes will be deleted.
For technical reasons, service capacities can only be set in steps of 10GB, 20GB, 50GB, 100GB, 200GB, 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, 5TB.

Schedule of changes implementation

In connection with the new pricing policy of Microsoft and Google, the university found itself in a situation where it is forced to introduce mechanisms for the long-term sustainable operation of these services. Although the university management managed to negotiate favorable conditions in the form of a temporary capacity increase, in the long term, the university must proceed to reduce stored data on both services or secure financing for over-limit capacity utilization. CIS VUT was tasked with implementing the appropriate technical measures. These measures were designed to disrupt the current use of services as little as possible, while providing users with sufficient time (one year) to check stored data, potentially migrate them to other storages or other solutions.

For the implementation of technical measures in the form of setting limits, a more than one-year schedule consisting of the following phases was chosen:

Frequently asked questions

Questions about the changes

• Until now, the limits have been very benevolent, why is it necessary to introduce restrictions suddenly?

  The previous conditions for the use of cloud storages at VUT copied the terms of use of individual providers of these services. In 2023, however, there was a substantial change in the terms of use by Google and subsequently also by Microsoft. The university management managed to negotiate individually favored conditions with both service providers for 2025 and 2026, but these conditions are valid only for a limited time. The university must use this time for the necessary reduction of stored data and for setting up a long-term sustainable model for the operation of cloud services.

• What would happen if the restrictions on storages were not implemented?

  If the appropriate restrictions were not introduced, there would be a risk that the total capacity available to the university would be exceeded. This would mean that all services in the Google Suite or Microsoft 365 environment would transition to a mode allowing only data reading (read-only) for all users at the university.

• When and by whom was the stated procedure decided?

  During January 2025, CIS, in cooperation with the CIO and other members of management, prepared several variants of possible procedures. These variants were further developed in the following months and then discussed in various forums. Individual comments were gradually incorporated, resulting in the final solution.

  Key negotiations took place in these forums:

  • Feb 18, 2025 – meeting of faculty system integrators
  • Mar 5, 2025 – meeting of secretaries
  • Mar 10, 2025 – rectorate management
  • Mar 28, 2025 – VUT Information System Council, VUT Technology Council
  • May 14, 2025 – VUT Network Administrators Council
  • Jun 20, 2025 – VUT Academic Senate
  • Sep 1, 2025 – VUT management, decision on the final form of rules and procedure

• As an alumnus, I continue to use the account and e-mail from my studies. Will it continue to work?

  Unfortunately, no. Previously, the licensing conditions of cloud services allowed retaining access to the account and e-mail even after graduation, but due to a change in pricing policy, this is no longer possible. VUT, in accordance with the principles of proper management, cannot finance services unrelated to work or study activities. Therefore, starting Dec 1, 2025, alumni with an active account will be gradually informed, and starting Mar 1, 2026, the process of deleting data from personal storages and deactivating accounts and e-mail boxes will begin.

About storages in general

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

  Cloud and other VUT storages serve exclusively for storing data related to work, scientific or study activities at VUT. It is not allowed to use them for personal data or files unrelated to functioning at VUT, such as vacation photos or videos.

• What are the consequences of exceeding the capacity limit for me?

  If you exceed the capacity on your personal storage, you will not lose any data, but the storage will transition to "read-only" mode – it will not be possible to save new data to it. Full access will be restored as soon as the size of the stored data drops below the set limit, or the reserved capacity is increased. After Oct 1, 2026, team storages with exceeded capacity will be gradually transitioned to read-only mode and made inaccessible, and after a potential protection period expires, the data will be deleted (i.e., the final form of the mechanism will be launched).

• Are there other options available for data storage?

  Options depend on the nature of the data. VUT, as a member of the CESNET z.s.p.o. association, can use, for example, the storage of the National Data Infrastructure.

  For smaller projects, it is possible to use the OwnCloud service, where each user can get a capacity of 100GB.

  For storing up to 2TB on S3 storage, you can request capacity via a simple form (Registration button) after logging in via VUT single sign-on. The request is usually approved within a short time.

  For projects requiring larger capacity, it is necessary to negotiate individual conditions.

• What happens to data after termination of studies or employment?

  After termination of studies or employment, your data in your personal storage and e-mail box remain available for a 30-day protection period. After the protection period expires, the data will be irreversibly deleted. You will be informed about the start of the protection period via a VUT message.

  In the case of team storages, data is preserved even after the end of studies or employment, and the same procedures apply to them as to any other team storage.

• How is data backed up on cloud services?

  Data backup is provided directly by cloud service providers (Microsoft, Google), primarily for their internal needs as part of so-called disaster recovery. However, a formal guarantee of the availability of these backups is not part of their standard contractual terms, neither for Microsoft nor for Google.

  Currently, no supplementary backing up is performed on the above-mentioned services by CIS VUT.

Personal and team storages and capacity increase

• Where can I find out the occupied capacity on individual storages?

  This information will be available during 2026 in the intraportal module dedicated to Cloud services settings.

  Another option is to view the occupied capacity directly in individual cloud services:
  - Microsoft Outlook: https://outlook.cloud.microsoft/mail/options/accounts-category/storage
  - Microsoft OneDrive: https://vutbr-my.sharepoint.com/
  - Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/settings/storage
  - Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/drive in the bottom left corner of the browser (in some cases, it is necessary to scroll down the menu content in the left bar and possibly reload/refresh the whole page). For shared drives, it is necessary to select the respective shared drive and in the top right corner select the icon with the i symbol (in a circle), which opens an information bar where the occupied space is displayed.

  
  

  

  

  
  
  

• Why is it possible to increase capacity on personal storage for double the price, what is the difference between personal and team storage?

  Personal storage is intended primarily for storing temporary files, user system settings, and user profiles. This content should be shared with other users only very exceptionally. After termination of studies or employment, data on the user's personal storage are deleted. For this reason, all users are provided with only the minimum technical capacity on personal storages, which is not desirable to be further increased at the expense of team storages.

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

• How can capacity on 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 conditioned by co-participation in the costs associated with the operation of the respective type of storage according to the valid price list.

  The increase of reserved capacity can be performed by any user and subsequently approved by the "operation principal" authorized for "operation" type transactions within the VUT electronic financial control (EFK). It is not necessary for the operation principal to be a member of the respective team storage or have access to its data. Capacity increase is performed via the cadm application at https://cadm.vut.cz.
  Instructions for using the application and further information can be found here.

• Why is capacity increase possible only in fixed steps?

  This stems from technical limitations on the part of cloud service providers, where the interface for automated disk space management (API) does not allow direct assignment of set capacity values for individual storage types. Capacity setting must therefore be handled by assigning users to predefined capacity profiles.

• Disks are cheap after all, why is storing data in cloud storages so expensive?

  Reliable and secure storage of data that is to be permanently accessible is a sophisticated IT discipline, and the difficulty of implementation 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 addressed by advanced technical means in the form of a disk array infrastructure, which are usually spread across multiple locations. Large demands are also created by the backup infrastructure, which must be able to accommodate several copies of the primary data in terms of capacity. The entire HW infrastructure must be renewed in regular cycles considering the moral obsolescence of technologies and the requirements for an increase in storage capacity.

  Therefore, we recommend carefully considering the method of data storage in projects, especially whether it is really necessary to store bulky data of both temporary and especially permanent nature on such expensive storages, and whether it would not be more appropriate to use a cheaper alternative.

• Why do services cost as much as they do, is the price guaranteed?

  Prices for increasing the reserved capacity correspond to the CIS 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 policy of cloud service operators, there is no guarantee that they will remain unchanged.

• Why can't I see the currently occupied capacity of Google storages in the CADM application, and why are data for M365 displayed with a delay?

  Google currently does not provide an API interface through which information about occupied capacity could be read into the CADM application. The M365 environment does have such an API available, but the data in it are available with a delay of several days. However, the actual setting and changes of quotas (for example, when increasing them) always happen immediately in real-time in both environments.

Mailboxes

• Is it possible to increase the capacity of the e-mail box?

  Increasing the capacity of the e-mail box is possible in the same way as the capacity of other types of storages.

• How do the shared capacity limits between the e-mail box and personal Google Drive work?

  Google services do not allow setting separate limits for the personal drive and the e-mail box; for this reason, the capacity of the Google e-mail box is shared with the personal Google Drive, and increasing the capacity of the Google e-mail box must be done by increasing the capacity of the personal Google Drive.

• What happens to incoming mail in case of exceeding the quota in the M365 environment?

  When the assigned quota is exceeded in the M365 environment, it will not be possible to send new e-mails from your mailbox, but all incoming mail will continue to be delivered to you. Please note that this behavior applies only to the M365 environment, not to Google. In case of exceeding the quota in the Google service, incoming mail will be rejected and returned to the sender as undeliverable.