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Pricing for the Microsoft Purview Data Map

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This guide covers pricing guidelines for the data map in the Microsoft Purview governance portal.

For a full pricing guideline details for Microsoft Purview (formerly Azure Purview), see the pricing guideline overview.

For specific price details, see the Microsoft Purview (formerly Azure Purview) pricing page. This article will guide you through the features and factors that will affect pricing for the Microsoft Purview Data Map.

Direct costs impacting pricing for the Microsoft Purview Data Map are based on the following three dimensions:

Elastic data map

  • The Data map is the foundation of the Microsoft Purview governance portal architecture and so needs to be up to date with asset information in the data estate at any given point

  • The data map is charged in terms of Capacity Unit (CU). The data map is provisioned at one CU if the catalog is storing up to 10 GB of metadata storage and serves up to 25 data map operations/sec

  • The data map is always provisioned at one CU when an account is first created

  • However, the data map scales automatically between the minimal and maximal limits of that elasticity window, to cater to changes in the data map with respect to two key factors - operation throughput and metadata storage

Operation throughput

  • An event driven factor based on the Create, Read, Update, Delete operations performed on the data map
  • Some examples of the data map operations would be:
    • Creating an asset in Data Map
    • Adding a relationship to an asset such as owner, steward, parent, lineage
    • Editing an asset to add business metadata such as description, glossary term
    • Keyword-search returning results to search result page
    • Importing or exporting information using API
  • If there are multiple queries executed on the Data Map, the number of I/O operations also increases resulting in the scaling up of the data map
  • The number of concurrent users also forms a factor governing the data map capacity unit
  • Other factors to consider are type of search query, API interaction, workflows, approvals, and so on
  • Data burst level
    • When there's a need for more operations/second throughput, the Data map can autoscale within the elasticity window to cater to the changed load
    • This constitutes the burst characteristic that needs to be estimated and planned for
    • The burst characteristic comprises the burst level and the burst duration for which the burst exists
      • The burst level is a multiplicative index of the expected consistent elasticity under steady state
      • The burst duration is the percentage of the month that such bursts (in elasticity) are expected because of growing metadata or higher number of operations on the data map

Metadata storage

  • If the number of assets reduces in the data estate, and are then removed in the data map through subsequent incremental scans, the storage component automatically reduces and so the data map scales down

Automated scanning, classification, and ingestion

There are two major automated processes that can trigger ingestion of metadata into the Microsoft Purview Data Map:

  • Automatic scans using native connectors. This process includes three main steps:

    • Metadata scan
    • Automatic classification
    • Ingestion of metadata into the Microsoft Purview Data Map

  • Automated ingestion using Azure Data Factory and/or Azure Synapse pipelines. This process includes:

    • Ingestion of metadata and lineage into the Microsoft Purview Data Map if the account is connected to any Azure Data Factory or Azure Synapse pipelines.

Automatic scans using native connectors

  • A full scan processes all assets within a selected scope of a data source whereas an incremental scan detects and processes assets, which have been created, modified, or deleted since the previous successful scan

  • All scans (full or Incremental scans) will pick up updated, modified, or deleted assets

  • It's important to consider and avoid the scenarios when multiple people or groups belonging to different departments set up scans for the same data source resulting in more pricing for duplicate scanning

  • Schedule frequent incremental scans post the initial full scan aligned with the changes in the data estate. This will ensure the data map is kept up to date always and the incremental scans consume lesser v-core hours as compared to a full scan

  • The “View Details” link for a data source will enable users to run a full scan. However, consider running incremental scans after a full scan for optimized scanning excepting when there's a change to the scan rule set (classifications/file types)

  • Register the data source at a parent collection and Scope scans at child collection with different access controls to ensure there are no duplicate scanning costs being entailed

  • Curtail the users who are allowed to register data sources for scanning through fine grained access control and Data Source Administrator role using Collection authorization. This will ensure only valid data sources are allowed to be registered and scanning v-core hours is controlled resulting in lower costs for scanning

  • Consider that the type of data source and the number of assets being scanned affect the scan duration

  • Create custom scan rule sets to include only the subset of file types available in your data estate and classifications that are relevant to your business requirements to ensure optimal use of the scanners

  • While creating a new scan for a data source, follow the order of preparation recommended before actually running the scan. This includes gathering the requirements for business specific classifications and file types (for storage accounts) to enable appropriate scan rule sets to be defined to avoid multiple scans and control unnecessary costs for multiple scans through missed requirements

  • Align your scan schedules with Self-Hosted Integration Runtime (SHIR) VMs (Virtual Machines) size to avoid extra costs linked to virtual machines

Automated ingestion using Azure Data Factory and/or Azure Synapse pipelines

  • Metadata and lineage are ingested from Azure Data Factory or Azure Synapse pipelines every time the pipelines run in the source system.

Advanced resource sets

  • The Microsoft Purview Data Map uses resource sets to address the challenge of mapping large numbers of data assets to a single logical resource by providing the ability to scan all the files in the data lake and find patterns (GUID, localization patterns, etc.) to group them as a single asset in the data map

  • Advanced Resource Set is an optional feature, which allows for customers to get enriched resource set information computed such as Total Size, Partition Count, etc., and enables the customization of resource set grouping via pattern rules. If Advanced Resource Set feature isn't enabled, Unified Catalog will still contain resource set assets, but without the aggregated properties. There will be no "Resource Set" meter billed to the customer in this case.

  • Use the basic resource set feature, before switching on the Advanced Resource Sets in the Microsoft Purview Data Map to verify if requirements are met

  • Consider turning on Advanced Resource Sets if:

    • Your data lakes schema is constantly changing, and you're looking for more value beyond the basic Resource Set feature to enable the Microsoft Purview Data Map to compute parameters such as #partitions, size of the data estate, etc., as a service
    • There's a need to customize how resource set assets get grouped.

  • It's important to note that billing for Advanced Resource Sets is based on the compute used by the offline tier to aggregate resource set information and is dependent on the size/number of resource sets in your catalog

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