Bye Bye 14.35pb & A1 Plus :(

[Tefters]

 

So there it is, Microsoft are taking away our free 14.5pb of pooled cloud storage and giving us 100TB + additional per paid user.

 

We have only used <1% but still... was always nice to see that storage number!

 

And bye bye A1 plus which if memory serves right was the ability to give users Office at home if you had an OVS for on-prem office.

Edited August 1, 2023 by Tefters

[Steve21]

Where you read that? not seen anything about it yet

 

Steve

[chris11256]

Had an alert through the Office 365 admin app this evening. We’re well below ourselves, but think I’ll double check OneDrive usage limits.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/products/Office-365-A1-Plus

Edited August 1, 2023 by chris11256

[Tefters]

Where you read that? not seen anything about it yet

 

Steve

 

Storage Changes for Microsoft 365 Education | Microsoft Education

 

The tools and reports they say we can use are not showing in my tenant yet though

 

Go back nearly 10 years ago Microsoft literally threw open Office 365 and Azure to Education with huge pots of storage and licensing and said "go nuts" as an answer to Googles school offering as a rush job and it spiralled out of control more and more from there. It was inevitable that at some point they would rein in back in to more sensible limits, but still generous, limits.

 

Also I like their spin on file clean-up and "dark data" as they call it. Will now start calling old sh*t that people don't need/use anymore but swear blind they dark data as it sounds scary and makes it sound like a risk which in truth it is but will hopefully make people realise they don't need that Powerpoint from 2014 anymore that hasn't been opened for 8 years and we IT people moved into a dark corner a long time ago to test the water and no-one noticed until we mentioned to them we did so and they screamed "NO I NEED THAT!"

Edited August 1, 2023 by Tefters

[ITGURU]

had this come through too..so essentially they are reducing the amount of onedrive storage for the free licenses?

[chris11256]

Yes although the new 100TB Shared pool covers usage from SharePoint, OneDrive & Exchange online . Edited August 1, 2023 by chris11256

[Tefters]

Yes although the new 100TB Shared pool covers usage from SharePoint, OneDrive & Exchange online .

 

Yeah, essentially they want people to get off the old OVS on-prem licensing and onto the Microsoft online packages which in all fairness is about the same cost and gives you licensing right to install the Office 365 version locally onto devices instead of the legacy Office versions so you end up with all the up-to-date features etc...

 

By now everybody that is using Office 365 seriously should be on those new licenses or renewing onto them this year/next at the end of their agreement.

 

Mine nowadays looks like the below at around 10.5k per year with a yearly setup fee on top of about £300 for some agreement with Chest I believe?

What I need to ascertain as Microsoft haven't worded it very well is if the second line on my licensing is covered as paid licenses because they are A3 student that we get for free as we license all the faculty.

Essentially, do i get 3000 x 50gb = 150TB or not because technically they are free licenses but because they are A3 they get counted or not as that's a lot of storage I could potentially lose out on as part of this deal.

 

Edited August 1, 2023 by Tefters

[MartinT]

We're still showing 14.38PB available of 14.39PB. We're on the new licensing.

[chris11256]

The storage changes & removal of A1 Plus don't start until after the 1st August next year. Edited August 2, 2023 by chris11256

[chris11256]

What I need to ascertain as Microsoft haven't worded it very well is if the second line on my licensing is covered as paid licenses because they are A3 student that we get for free as we license all the faculty.

Essentially, do i get 3000 x 50gb = 150TB or not because technically they are free licenses but because they are A3 they get counted or not as that's a lot of storage I could potentially lose out on as part of this deal.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]69623[/ATTACH]

 

Looks like only paid licenses count. Here's a snip from the FAQ 'Paid users contribute to the storage pool, however Student Use Benefits (SUB) and alumni do not contribute to the pool (they consume from the pool of storage). Microsoft recommends setting limits across user groups to better manage the pool of storage in the school tenant.' So Student Use Benefit don't count towards the extra 50GB.

[pete]

It's also not clear how that affects N+1 schools using the same tenancy.

 

If we have a MAT with 10 schools in the same tenancy, is that a petabye of storage or just 100TB as it's only one edu 365 tenancy?

 

Interesting time of year to bury the announcement too.

[willtech]

We're still showing 14.38PB available of 14.39PB. We're on the new licensing.

 

You won't yet:

 

Beginning at a school’s next contract renewal, but no sooner than 1 August 2024, all school tenants will receive 100TB ​of free pooled storage across OneDrive, SharePoint, and Exchange, with additional pooled storage per paid user, depending on your subscription

 

Effective February 2024, users of Office 365 A1 (free subscription) will be limited to a maximum of 100GB for OneDrive storage, within the 100TB of pooled storage for the school tenant. IT Admins have the flexibility to set a lower limit for A1 users.

[willtech]

It's also not clear how that affects N+1 schools using the same tenancy.

 

If we have a MAT with 10 schools in the same tenancy, is that a petabye of storage or just 100TB as it's only one edu 365 tenancy?

 

Interesting time of year to bury the announcement too.

 

I would say its just 100TB for the Tenant but in the FAQ this says this as well:

 

Should I deploy multiple tenants vs a single tenant?

 

Microsoft recommends deploying into a single tenant whenever possible. Multiple tenants are difficult

to manage effectively, requiring duplication for every operational task. You easily get into incongruent

settings across tenants. You will also get additional storage capacity limits against your pool. Office 365

A1 in every tenant will receive the same max limit in Exchange, SharePoint, and OneDrive.

 

but that's 100TB for the tenant only unless they are going to make exceptions

 

Storage FAQs: https://edudownloads.azureedge.net/msdownloads/M365-Education-Storage-FAQ.pdf

Office A1 Plus FAQs: https://edudownloads.azureedge.net/msdownloads/Office-365-A1-Plus-FAQ.pdf

Edited August 2, 2023 by willtech

[Tefters]

AHA!

 

And as if by magic the storage report tools have now appeared in Office 365 reporting.

 

12.11TB storage used out of our 106.75TB total after the changes next year so nothing to worry about, even if people started going nuts and saving more online!

[pete]

AHA!

 

And as if by magic the storage report tools have now appeared in Office 365 reporting.

 

12.11TB storage used out of our 106.75TB total after the changes next year so nothing to worry about, even if people started going nuts and saving more online!

 

I'm seeing quite odd data when I click on the storage-per-product breakdown. OneDrive's reporting space consumption by long-deleted (2018) accounts from years ago.

 

It's not clear whether that's a problem with their data or if the "no really, we definitely delete stuff when you tell us" is a lie.

 

Anyone else seeing this? (365 Admin Centre > Reports > Storage > Storage use by product > OneDrive).

 

I've opened a support request, 'cos this is either a) mistakenly including historical consumption or b) deletion of user accounts not deleting OneDrive contents (despite Microsoft saying they did).

Edited August 4, 2023 by pete

[Tefters]

I'm seeing quite odd data when I click on the storage-per-product breakdown. OneDrive's reporting space consumption by long-deleted (2018) accounts from years ago.

 

It's not clear whether that's a problem with their data or if the "no really, we definitely delete stuff when you tell us" is a lie.

 

Anyone else seeing this? (365 Admin Centre > Reports > Storage > Storage use by product > OneDrive).

 

I've opened a support request, 'cos this is either a) mistakenly including historical consumption or b) deletion of user accounts not deleting OneDrive contents (despite Microsoft saying they did).

 

I'm not seeing this personally. Presume you have done a quick search in Office365 and on-prem AD to make sure those users definitely don't exist anymore?

Also isn't there like a default 90 day retention or something like that configured through Sharepoint online which might be a factor?

 

I'm giggling more at the CSV export and the space calculations through Excel.

Viewing the CSV through notepad is fine and shows the space and the Quotas fine by open it in excel and enjoy the +11 and +12 calculations.

They need to add an export to Excel option with the calculation formatted properly.

[pete]

I'm not seeing this personally. Presume you have done a quick search in Office365 and on-prem AD to make sure those users definitely don't exist anymore?

Also isn't there like a default 90 day retention or something like that configured through Sharepoint online which might be a factor?

 

I'm giggling more at the CSV export and the space calculations through Excel.

Viewing the CSV through notepad is fine and shows the space and the Quotas fine by open it in excel and enjoy the +11 and +12 calculations.

They need to add an export to Excel option with the calculation formatted properly.

 

Yeah, we're talking students who were deleted in 2018. Their accounts are gone and our retention is 180days after deletion.

 

There is an Advisory open in the message centre:

 

MO649834: Users’ files in the Preservation Hold Library aren't being deleted by retention policies or retention labels.

 

but the description refers to a recent change causing the issue, not a 5-year backlog.

Edited August 4, 2023 by pete

[Tefters]

Yeah, we're talking students who were deleted in 2018. Their accounts are gone and our retention is 180days after deletion.

 

There is an Advisory open in the message centre:

 

MO649834: Users’ files in the Preservation Hold Library aren't being deleted by retention policies or retention labels.

 

but the description refers to a recent change causing the issue, not a 5-year backlog.

 

This is Microsoft though...

 

I'm now considering forcing Online Archive on everyone with a 2 year policy

Edited August 4, 2023 by Tefters

[MartinT]

Do you archive mailboxes as inactive? We do for staff for 7 years after they have left, so this will add to the storage consumed.

[pete]

Do you archive mailboxes as inactive? We do for staff for 7 years after they have left, so this will add to the storage consumed.

 

Nope. I've re-checked the policies this afternoon. We set a default 180 days retention, but thereafter the usual retention kicks in and things should disappear on day 181 if either the user deletes the file or we delete the user.

 

Mailboxes look fine (current staff and students and some recently-deleted people within the 180 days limit), it's just OneDrive that's way off.

[Cw2k]

On Wednesday 9th at 4pm Microsoft are holding a meeting on the a1 and storage changes, register here https://aka.ms/ukeduwebinar

[Tefters]

So last nights meeting was a good one, if you liked drama. *popcorn*

 

Hats off to Microsoft for being honest and reining in the unlimited storage, they made no illusions during the meeting that this would change or be up for debate and simply said "its unsustainable, clean up you cr*p and use storage limits", if people honestly thought we were to keep 14+ PB's of cloud storage for free than I would question their IT management skills.

 

Also I applaud both Microsoft and the university I cant remember for speaking up regarding the university that was complaining about storing all their research data in Office365 instead of a proper research data platform, Office365 is for productivity data.

 

Anyways...

 

My only big gripe which they kept dodging in Q&A and hope we get proper answers on is the "dark data". We all have data which is so old no-one uses and is potentially a risk and waste of storage so how do we identify this. We need tools to identify data based on last accessed.

[Rob_D]

Do you know if the meeting was recorded/is going to be available those who missed it?

[Paid_Peanuts]

They did record the meeting and said it would be made available at some point. Microsoft were going to collate all the written chat questions and produce an answers document to accompany the recording.

[MYK-IT]

For those who didn't attend, the following website covers the 'Changes to storage offerings across Microsoft 365 Education' https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/education/products/Microsoft-365-Storage-Options

 

MATs who have a single M365 tenant (to cover all schools) raised concern, as (it currently stands) they would only get 100TB pool storage (to cover all schools); as opposed if they had an individual tenant per school each with 100TB of pooled storage.

 

Their example, that in Brazil, they have millions of free users (using A1/A1 Plus accounts and a lot of data) didn't go down to well, noting some commenting that does this mean UK EDU customers are footing the costs (of Brazilian users)???

 

Time to reduce those default 1024GB OneDrive quotas and add M365 Storage monitoring to your checklists.. https://admin.microsoft.com/#/storagemanagement/OneDrive