21 Aug 2023

Microsoft Purview – Free or Enterprise Edition?

by Dr Victoria Holt, Coeo Enterprise Data Architect – Data Governance specialist and Data Platform MVP

 

Last week the Microsoft Purview product took an exciting new path. The announcement of a Free and Enterprise version of Microsoft Purview.

Microsoft Purview is a family of data governance, risk and compliance tools. The tools help a business provide governance through the automation of many tasks to govern, protect and manage the entire data estate.

This new style of data governance and free version of Purview propel a business fast-paced understanding of the data estate whilst enabling those guard rails to be automatically applied. Knowing what data you have, compliance and what state of data quality help prevent those costly breaches, base business decisions on accurate information, and place a business in an AI-ready state.

The free version currently supports 4 data types: blob storage, data lake storage Gen 2, SQL Database and subscriptions, with a limited number of annotated results.

The benefits of both the free and enterprise tier of Microsoft Purview
Microsoft Purview: Free and Enterprise benefits comparison

The question is when to use Enterprise over the Free tier. The free tier provides limited functionality across the organisation. It enables you to become familiar with the Data Catalog and get started with data governance. Then once some existing resources have been curated within Purview and you want to expand to all other governance features, that is the time to upgrade to the Enterprise Edition. Adding things like workflow and business rules enables automation and for the data to be linked further to the business. Currently, the Free version seems to be a permanently free version.

Check out the new Microsoft Purview portal to see what assets you are assigned to in the business. Enable your first steps to automated trusted data governance for free. You can visit the portal here.

Want to learn more about how we can help with that data governance journey in the business? Get in touch. Purview is rapidly changing and I would recommend:

  • Having a look at the free version to familiarise yourself with the data catalog. We are happy to chat to you about the functionality.
  • Consider upgrading to Enterprise Edition to add your business glossary. Creating that business glossary requires cross-team collaboration and we can help drive that forward.
  • Think about adding some automation through workflows to help speed up data processes.

Source: Get started with the free version of Microsoft Purview | Microsoft Learn