Central,Cloud
andDataStorage

At BUT, several central and cloud storage options are available for working with data. An account for each type of storage is automatically created for every person who has a valid employment or student relationship with one of BUT's organizational units, as recorded in VUTIS.

The following storage options are available:

Other sources of information

Open Science at BUT CESNET

Consider using CESNET storage

BUT is a member of the CESNET association, whose cloud and data storage can be used as a supplement to M365 and Google Workspace – especially for larger volumes or long-term stored data.

ownCloud CESNET

100 GB

Capacity for each user. Suitable for smaller projects and everyday file management. Login is via BUT unified authentication.

CESNET Data Storage

2 TB

Available after a simple registration. Object (S3) storage suitable for research and project data. Capacity can be requested after logging in via BUT unified authentication; individual conditions can be negotiated for larger projects.

Find out more and register

Notice to current students and employees

During 2026, due to substantial changes in the pricing policies of cloud service providers, BUT must take measures to establish rules for the long-term sustainable operation of Microsoft 365 and Google Drive services. More detailed information about the upcoming measures and the implementation process can be found in the text below.

At the same time, we would like to politely ask you to review the data stored in Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace to see if it contains files that are no longer needed, and to check your storage capacity settings via the https://cadm.vut.cz application.

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

Storage type / Type of relationship		Microsoft 365	Google G-Suite	BUT Drive
Default capacity personal drive^*1	employees (full-time, agreements, non-registered)	10 GB	20 GB (including mail)	32 GB
	students of all study programmes	5 GB	5 GB (including mail)	4 GB
	others (external collaborators, interrupted studies, etc.)	1 GB	1 GB (including mail)	4 GB
Default space for mailboxes		10 GB	shared with personal drive	-
Default capacity for team storages (SharePoint, MS Teams, M 365 groups, Google Drive Shared drive)		1 GB	0 GB	-
Increase of reserved capacity of personal storage per every additional 10 GB^*2		8 CZK / month	8 CZK / month	-
Increase of reserved capacity of mailbox per every additional 10 GB^*2		4 CZK / month	-	-
Increase of reserved capacity of team storage first 1 GB^*2		-	0 CZK / month	-
Increase of reserved capacity of team storage per every additional 10 GB^*2		4 CZK / month	4 CZK / month	-

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

1) Technical minimum for account operation.

2) Capacity increase is done via the CADM application at https://cadm.vut.cz

More information can be found in the frequently asked questions section.

Schedule of implementing changes

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 favourable conditions in the form of a temporary capacity increase, in the long term, the university must proceed to reduce the stored data on both services or secure funding for over-limit capacity usage. CIS BUT was tasked with implementing the relevant technical measures. These measures were designed to minimize disruption to the current use of services while providing users with sufficient time (one year) to review stored data, potentially migrate them to other storages, or find other solutions.

A schedule of more than a year consisting of the following phases was chosen for the implementation of technical measures in the form of setting limits:

12/2025
- All BUT alumni and former employees with active access to cloud services will be informed via BUT messages about the upcoming expiration of these accounts. Due to the high number of users, the sending of notifications will proceed gradually until February 2026.
03/2026
- Gradual initiation of the deletion of data, mailboxes, and accounts of former students and employees.
07/2026
- An application enabling self-service capacity increase on team, personal, and mail storages will be made available at https://cadm.vut.cz.
- The default capacity setting for newly created team storages (SharePoint, Google Team Drive) will be set to 1GB.
08/2026
- Initiation of monthly sending of notifications on the need to reduce data or set reserved capacity via VUTIS.
10/2026
- Final setting of target parameters.
- Initiation of deletion of team drives with exceeded basic capacity without increased reserved capacity.
- Transfer of personal and mail storages with exceeded capacity to read-only mode.
1.3.2027
- Initiation of charging for reserved storage capacity.

Given the procedural and technical complexity of the above changes and measures, it is not possible to grant individual exceptions in the individual steps.

Frequently asked questions

Questions about the changes

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

The previous conditions for using cloud storages at BUT mirrored the terms of use of the individual providers of these services. However, in 2023, there was a substantial change in the terms of use at Google and subsequently at Microsoft. The university management managed to negotiate individual favourable conditions with both 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 of cloud services operation.
What would happen if the storage restrictions were not introduced?

If the respective 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 the Google Suite or Microsoft 365 environment would switch to a read-only mode for all users at the university.
When and by whom was this procedure decided?
During January 2025, the CIS, in cooperation with the CIO and other members of the 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 meetings took place at these forums:
- Feb 18, 2025 – meeting of faculty system integrators
- Mar 5, 2025 – meeting of bursars
- Mar 10, 2025 – Rectorate management
- Mar 28, 2025 – BUT Information System Council, BUT Technology Council
- May 14, 2025 – BUT Network Administrators Council
- Jun 20, 2025 – BUT Academic Senate
- Sep 1, 2025 – BUT management, decision on the final form of rules and procedures
As an alumnus, I continue to use my account and email from my studies. Will it continue to work?

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

About storages in general

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

Cloud and other BUT storages serve exclusively for storing data related to work, scientific, or study activities at BUT. It is not allowed to use them for personal data or files unrelated to activities at BUT, 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 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 switched to read-only mode and become inaccessible, and after any protection period expires, the data will be deleted (i.e. the final form of the mechanism will be triggered).
Are there other options available for storing data?

The options depend on the nature of the data. BUT, as a member of the CESNET z.s.p.o. association, can, for example, use the National Data Infrastructure storages.

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

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

For projects requiring larger capacity, it is necessary to negotiate individual conditions.
What happens to data after graduation or termination of employment?

After the termination of studies or employment, your data in the personal storage and email mailbox remain available during 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 BUT 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), mainly for their internal needs within so-called disaster recovery. However, a formal guarantee of the availability of these backups is not part of their standard contractual terms, neither at Microsoft nor at Google.

Currently, CIS BUT does not perform any additional backups on the above-mentioned services.
Why can't I use a Microsoft 365 Personal account when it's significantly cheaper?
Although the private version may seem like a significantly more advantageous alternative, its use for university purposes (teaching, research, operations) is absolutely excluded. It is not only about technical limitations, but primarily about legal and licensing barriers that the university must respect.

These are mainly the following reasons:
- Violation of licensing terms: According to the Microsoft Services Agreement, Personal and Family plans are intended exclusively for personal, non-commercial use. Storing any institutional data (teaching, research, BUT operations) in these accounts is a direct violation of the contract.
- Conflict with GDPR: From a legal perspective, BUT acts as a so-called data controller. The processing of this data (including cloud storage) can only be entrusted to a third party on the basis of a contract (Data Protection Addendum – DPA), which binds the supplier to handle the data exclusively according to the university's instructions. Such a contract does not exist for a private account in relation to the university.
- Missing guarantee of data location: Contracts for institutions (DPA and EU Data Boundary) contractually guarantee that university data will not physically leave servers in the European Union. Microsoft does not provide such a contractual guarantee for private accounts.
- Loss of control and continuity: Personal OneDrive is tied to a private account out of the university's reach. BUT has no access to it. Thus, it is not possible to enforce the BUT security and login policy, audit data, or ensure the requirements of the Cyber Security Act.
Tip: So if you are looking for a cheaper alternative, for example for extensive research data, please consider using, for instance, the storage capacities of the CESNET association.

Personal and team storages and capacity increases

Where can I find the occupied capacity on individual storages?

An overview of your own storages can be obtained in the CADM application at https://cadm.vut.cz. Due to technical limitations on the part of cloud service providers, data may be displayed with a delay of several days.

Another option is to view the occupied capacity directly on the 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 entire page). For shared drives, you must select the respective shared drive and in the top right corner select the icon with the 'i' symbol (in a circle), which opens an info panel where the occupied space is displayed.
Why is it possible to increase the capacity on personal storage for double the price, what is the difference between personal and team storage?

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

Team storages are intended for storing data such as work documents, project results, measurements, presentations, etc., whose content 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 the capacity on a 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, the increase in reserved capacity is subject to co-participation in the costs associated with operating the respective type of storage according to the valid price list.

The increase in reserved capacity can be performed by any user and subsequently approved by the "authorizing officer" authorized for "operation" type operations within the BUT electronic financial control (EFC). It is not necessary for the authorizing officer to be a member of the respective team storage or have access to its data. Capacity increase is carried out via the cadm application at https://cadm.vut.cz.
Instructions on how to use the application and further information can be found here.
Why can the capacity increase be done only in fixed steps?

This results from technical limitations on the side of cloud service providers, where the application programming interface (API) for automated disk space management does not allow direct assignment of set capacity values for individual storage types. Thus, setting capacities must be solved by assigning users to predefined capacity profiles.
Hard drives are cheap after all, why is storing data in cloud storages so expensive?

Reliable and secure storage of data that must be permanently accessible is a sophisticated IT discipline, and the complexity of implementations 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 with advanced technical means in the form of a disk array infrastructure, which are usually spread across multiple locations. High demands are also placed on the backup infrastructure, which must be able to hold several copies of primary data. The entire hardware infrastructure must be renewed in regular cycles taking into account the moral obsolescence of technologies and demands for storage capacity growth.

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 the services cost what they cost, is the price guaranteed?

The prices for increasing the reserved capacity correspond to the CIS cost prices at which the services are purchased from cloud providers. These prices are the result of a public tender and are fixed for at least one year. However, given the unpredictable pricing policy of cloud service providers, it cannot be guaranteed that they will remain unchanged.
Why can't I see the current occupied capacity of Google storages in the CADM application, and why is data for M365 displayed with a delay?

Google currently does not provide an API interface through which information about the occupied capacity could be read into the CADM application. Although the M365 environment has such an API available, the data in it is 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 mailbox capacity?

Increasing the mailbox capacity is possible in the same way as the capacity of other types of storages.
How do shared capacity limits between a mailbox and a personal Google Drive work?

Google services do not allow setting separate limits for a personal drive and an email mailbox; for this reason, the Google mailbox capacity is shared with the Google personal drive, and increasing the Google mailbox capacity must be done by increasing the Google personal drive capacity.
What happens to received mail if the quota in the M365 environment is exceeded?

When the allocated quota in the M365 environment is exceeded, you will not be able to send new emails 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 the event of exceeding the quota on the Google service, incoming mail will be rejected and returned to the sender as undeliverable.