The University’s network file store solution, which the University has been using for the last several years, will be taken out of service during AY 2021/22 due to a decision by Microsoft to retire this product. Similar to the Box project, this means that individual data, shared data and research data (around 71TB worth of data) currently located in Network File Store (i.e. your Home Drive, Shared Drives or Research Drives) will be migrated to Microsoft 365 storage.
Your individual data will be migrated to OneDrive, and departmental/shared or research data will be migrated to a dedicated SharePoint Site specified by you or your department.
This change will drive forward our utilisation of Microsoft 365 storage including SharePoint and OneDrive, and will enable improved communication and collaboration between staff and students, using safe and secure platforms
What is OneDrive & SharePoint?
Office 365 (O365) encompasses most of the tools and services most of us are using daily, including the MS Office suite, OneDrive and SharePoint:
- OneDrive – storage for your individual work files that are backed up and cloud based. We will migrate data from your home (H) drive to OneDrive as part of this project.
- SharePoint – storage for shared departmental documents. We will migrate your shared departmental folders/files from your shared drives (S and others) into SharePoint by identifying an existing SharePoint site, or creating a new SharePoint Site.
What about Research Drive?
Most data in research drive is suitable for storage in SharePoint, though some will require on-premise storage. We will contact the owners of research drive folders to ascertain the best place for them.
How will I access my files once they are moved to OneDrive or SharePoint?
There is an existing link on the portal home page to Office 365 and all its applications: https://www.office.com/. From here you can access your OneDrive or SharePoint Sites by using the navigation bar to the left-hand side.
How will the rollout be managed?
We plan to approach the data migration in the following order:
- Individual staff data, to be migrated on a department by department basis (H drives) to OneDrive
- Research drives by folder owner ??(including any on premise requirements)
- Shared data on a department by department basis (S drives / other shared drives)
- Individual student data – migration to OneDrive
We will soon be approaching departments to discuss the migration timeline for each of the required data migrations outline above.
We anticipate all individual data will be migrated by the end of December 2021, with the other migrations following shortly after in early 2022.
What should I be doing now?
Any Faculty or Directorate that may be interested in going early in the rollout, please contact Eve Whitelaw, Project Manager.
Review your departmental and individual data in network file store (i.e your H drive or S drives) to consider whether you can delete any old files or other data ahead of the migration.
Resources
See our Office 365 Learning Pathways site for the latest Microsoft training resources side by side with recordings of our own series of training sessions ‘Mastering Microsoft’.