This page outlines the Terms of Service for Research Object Storage (S3). (note:  support (i.e. demo) accounts have additional terms related to this service)

Service Sponsor

University of Wisconsin, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education, hereafter ("VCRGE".)

Service Provider

University of Wisconsin, Division of Information Technology, hereafter ("DoIT".)

Service Description

Data will be stored on Research Object Storage (S3), a campus-wide file storage service hosted by University of Wisconsin - Madison and managed by DoIT.

Restricted Data

Research Object Storage (S3) does not yet support restricted data, and restricted data of any kind must not be stored in this service.  

Service Eligibility

Any permanent UW-Madison staff member is eligible to receive a Research Object Storage (S3) account.  However, only specific groups are eligible to receive a 50TB no cost storage subsidy on the service.  See Eligibility for 50TB no cost subsidy for an overview of groups eligible for subsidy.

Any permanent UW-Madison staff member not eligible for the subsidy will be given a fully billed account and will pay for any storage used. 

Service Pricing

50 TB of no cost storage is provided by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education to each eligible researcher.

The price for additional storage space for researchers who need more than 50 TB is $60/TB per year.  For permanent UW-Madison staff members not eligible for the subsidy, the price is $60/TB per year.

Storage is billed monthly based on usage.

Service and Support Requests

Research Object Storage (S3) follows a shared responsibility model.  The ResearchDrive team is responsible for managing the S3 cluster and the security of the data that is on it, including encryption and patching.  Researchers (in partnership with their local IT) are responsible for ensuring the security of any third party applications or scripts which connect to the service as well as the endpoints they run on.  Because of this shared responsibility model, you have several sources of support including vendors of your software, your local IT, and the ResearchDrive Team.

Your local IT support can help you with many of your requests. 

Requests for additional support can be made by contacting researchdrive@wisc.edu or contacting the DoIT Help Desk.

Documentation with details about Research Object Storage (S3) is available in Research Data Knowledge Base.

Service outages should be reported to the DoIT Help Desk.

Service Cancellation Policy

Customers may discontinue Research Object Storage (S3) service by contacting researchdrive@wisc.edu or contacting the DoIT Help Desk.

Service Management

Service Management Framework: Research Object Storage (S3) adheres to the DoIT Operational Framework based on ITIL.

Incident and Problem Management: Research Object Storage (S3) adheres to the DoIT Operational Framework - Incident Management process.

Event Management: Research Object Storage (S3) adheres to the DoIT Operational Framework - Event Management process.

Change Management: Research Object Storage (S3) adheres to the DoIT Operational Framework - Change Management process.

Configuration Management: Research Object Storage (S3) adheres to the DoIT Operational Framework - Configuration Management process.

Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP): Research Object Storage (S3) adheres to the University of Wisconsin COOP program.

Service Maintenance and Patching

Research Object Storage (S3) service outages will be posted to the DoIT Outages page at http://outages.doit.wisc.edu.  Change records for code upgrades are available at

DoIT will perform maintenance on the storage systems such as applying code upgrades and security updates. Customers will not normally be impacted by this work.

Customers will be notified by email in advance of any maintenance work that will potentially cause a disruption of service.