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UTmail Storage Reduction

December 19, 2022

After applying the storage quota limits to all 290,000 accounts in November, we are happy to report that our Google Workspace storage usage is now below the 545TB storage limit Google will be imposing on December 31st.

Over the past year, with the help of our user community and excellent partners, we have accomplished a huge undertaking. We were tasked with lowering our storage from 6.2PB to 545TB, a 90% reduction. With a diverse set of users both internal and external to the university, we knew this would be a project that would require heavy communications and marketing.

Without the help of our partners, including but not limited to the ITS Service Desk, Texas Exes, the Development Office, Information Technology Leadership Council, Academic Technology Council, Retired Faculty and Staff Association, and members of the university community in general, we would not have succeeded. Now that Google Workspace has been given an instructional focus by the academic community, we are now beginning to plan out future changes that support this focus.

A huge thank you to the project team that included Jenn Coast, Steve Walker, Katelyn Christiansen, Chase Morlege, and Gary Ward for their ongoing contributions and effort. Now, we move forward implementing a new era of UT Google Workspace, so that its primary focus is supporting the academic mission of the university.

 

If you have any questions, please contact the Service Desk at 512-475-9400 or submit a help request online.

This project has been completed.

UTmail is a branded Google G Suite service that provides eligible members of The University of Texas at Austin community with a university-affiliated '@utexas.edu' email address as well as unlimited content storage. 

The UTmail Storage Reduction Project will ensure that the total storage of the university's G Suite complies with the new storage maximum of 545TB which will be implemented by Google in December 2022 thereby preventing loss of data, service outages, security risks, and unexpected costs.

ITS will work with more than 270,000 customers to reduce their storage before November 1, 2022  due to Google imposing tenant-wide restrictions on storing data and sending or receiving email.

You must check your UTmail storage usage to ensure that you are below the limit for your user type according to the limits.  

For information about the UTmail Service please visit our knowledge article. 

Storage

As of November 2021, UTmail is utilizing over 6.4 PB of pooled storage. However, due to a change in the G Suite storage policy, Google will implement a 545 TB pooled storage quota.

 Of the customers impacted: 70,000 are students, faculty, and staff, and 200,000 are alumni and retirees.

  • Current faculty and staff will be limited to 20 GB of Google Workspace Instructional storage, including email and stored files. If a user has more than 20 GB stored in Google, they will be required to migrate their email and/or files to a new location. 

  • Students accounts will be limited to 5 GB of Google Workspace storage, including email and stored files. If a user has more than 5 GB stored in Google, they will be required to migrate their email and/or files to a new location. 

  • Alumni and Retiree accounts will be limited to 1 GB of email.  Google Workspace applications, including Drive, will no longer be available. Users must reduce their Google email storage below 1 GB and remove files stored in Drive to another storage location.   

  • Enable activity-based de-provisioning for Alumni and Retiree accounts.  After 365 days of inactivity, an account will be archived, then deleted after 120 days. 

  • The project team is working with campus governance to develop a storage strategy and create an online guide to assist users with storage selection.

 

Goals

The goals of this project and ultimate success criteria are:

  • Work with governance to develop the service strategy and policies. 

  • Define role-based storage quotas and account availability policies.  

  • Implement customer-focused communications to effectively share the timeline and goals with stakeholders and customers. 

  • Develop documentation for content management best practices. 

  • Implement guidance to assist users in migrating data to prevent data loss. 

  • Apply newly defined storage quotas to user accounts. 

  • Delete data prior to Google’s imposition of storage limits and associated impact to the service. 

  • Reduce risk to the university by having customers eliminate records that are eligible for disposition. 
     

Timeline

Over the next 12 months, ITS will communicate and implement the above changes to the UTmail service and reduce the overall storage usage under the 545 TB quota prior to the December 31, 2022 deadline.

View project documents and files.


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