Azure Purview Elastic Data Map

It’s been a long and intensive discussion – the (initial) pricing structure of Azure Purview. As I already talked about it in my Purview pricing blog post, the basic cost calculation involves

• the cost for the data map (= the infrastructure to store metadata and provide the Purview UI + cataloging functionality)
• plus the costs involved for scanning sources.

The data map costs were fixed (until today) to either 4 capacity units(CU) or 16 capacity units. Without an option to stop / pause / react to minimal performance needs ….

Purview Elastic Data Map

Today (2021-08-18), the Azure Purview team announced the Elastic data map concept (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/purview/concept-elastic-data-map) which allows for an auto-scaling of the underlying infrastructure. The minimum data map size is now 1 CU with is named a data map capacity unit (DMCU ;-)) which equals to a throughput of 25 operations/sec and 2 GB of metadata storage.

• The data map is auto scaled – which means if you / Azure Purview exceeds the current performance ranges (operations/sec or metadata storage), the data map is scaled.
• The data map is billed on an hourly basis – the maximum peak defines the number of DMCU you are charged.
• The data map is scaled up and down between the defined quotas (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/purview/how-to-manage-quotas)

What about my existing Purview account?

According to the email sent from Azure Purview team, existing Purview accounts will be transferred to an underlying elastic data map in the September/October timeframe.

What about new Purview accounts?

As of today, new Purview accounts are created with an elastic data map beneath – the Create a Purview Account dialog already shows this:

Create A new Purview Account dialog in the Azure portal

And now – the hard facts… costs..

Well.. save the best for the last.. they said..

And to be honest – I cannot name a price because.. the pricing page (https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/azure-purview/#overview) is updated and mentions this:

What is really interesting – what will be the price for a CU / hour? plus .. it’s mentioning: Capacity Units free in Preview.. which would in turn mean that there should be no charges in this timeframe for the data map.

We’ll see..

Stay curious, catalog & govern your data!

Wolfgang