Microsoft Purview data governance pricing concepts
Note
The new pricing model for Microsoft Purview Data Governance goes into effect on January 6, 2025.
Microsoft Purview Unified Catalog has a new pricing model with 2 meters that run based on:
- Number of unique governed assets per day
- Data Management processing units per run
Prerequisites
To use Microsoft Purview pay-as-you go, you need:
- An Azure subscription in the same tenant as Microsoft Purview.
- An Azure resource group in that subscription.
If you already have these resources for other purposes, you can also use them with Microsoft Purview.
What is a governed asset?
You start their data governance journey from activities that aren't data governance specific: registering and scanning of data sources, and storing technical data assets in a common platform in the form of tables, files, datasets, semantic models, AI models, reports, dashboards, etc.
Governance starts when you begin curating and actively managing the technical assets in Microsoft Purview Unified Catalog. In Unified Catalog, the active management and curation of assets turns assets into 'governed assets.' A governed asset is a technical file or table or report etc. that is attached/associated to a governance concept. For example, a data product or a critical data element. Until a technical asset is associated to a governance concept, the technical asset isn't considered 'governed asset.'
For instance, if you have a SQL server with 200 tables, and only 20 tables in the gold tier of the medallion structure. You have created 20 data products with each data product linked to a table. Every day, Unified Catalog's billing system will look for the count of tables that are associated to the data product. Only 20 tables are linked to data products, so only 20 tables are governed assets, instead of the full 200 tables.
Over time, you might want to attach a glossary term and a policy to the data product, which will then also apply to the governed assets. In each case, a governed asset is still a single governed asset regardless of how many concepts are attached to the asset.
- Example 1: A SQL table is referenced within a data product. The same SQL table is used in five other data products. The SQL table is counted one time only, once a day.
- Example 2: I have created 50 governance domains and data products. But haven't attached any tables or files/reports/dashboards. In this case I won't be charged for any governed asset.
- Example 3: I accidentally attached a server to the data product. Purview counts just the server as a single asset, not all the children tables within it
Data governance processing units explained
A data governance processing unit (DGPU) is a fully managed compute unit used to run compute heavy capabilities such as data quality and data health management. Each DGPU is 60 minutes of compute time run across varying sets of nodes based on the workload need.
DGPUs consumed is dependent on:
- DQ or health (metadata quality) rule type - out of the box or custom
- Volume of the data
- Source type - same volume of data may generate different DGPUs across two different source types
Some ranges of DGPU generated are as follows:
| Data Source | Row count | SKU Type | Rule Type | DGPU per rule per run |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Azure SQL DB | 1 Million | Basic | Empty/blank check | 0.02 |
| Azure SQL DB | 1 Million | Basic | StringFormat=Regex/Like check | 0.02 |
| Azure SQL DB | 1 Million | Basic | Table lookup (1 mill row reference table) | 0.03 |
| Azure SQL DB | 1 Million | Basic | Unique check | 0.02 |
| Azure SQL DB | 1 Million | Basic | Duplicate check = 3 column-combo | 0.02 |
SKU selection is a feature that's coming soon.
Platform charges for scanning and data map
The new Microsoft Purview Unified Catalog currently runs on the existing Microsoft Purview Data Map. While the classic Unified Catalog has pricing that you can see in the pricing page today, the data map and scan charges won't apply to the customers of the new Unified Catalog, once they either provide consent to move to the new Microsoft Purview pricing and experiences, or they upgrade from free to enterprise tier after January 6, 2025.
While the new Microsoft Purview Unified Catalog is rolling out in multiple regions, its current availability list is available here.