What's available in the free version of Microsoft Purview governance solutions?

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Important

This feature is currently in preview. The Supplemental Terms of Use for Microsoft Azure Previews include additional legal terms that apply to Azure features that are in beta, in preview, or otherwise not yet released into general availability.

Microsoft Purview offers your administrators the ability to govern your data estate and your users the ability to discover data across your organization. The free version of Microsoft Purview governance solutions is an automatically available instance, ready for your users without needing to set it up. It allows your organization to try Microsoft Purview's basic capabilities and begin your governance journey.

The free version of Microsoft Purview governance solutions uses a single, organization-wide instance of Microsoft Purview that users can access to explore their Azure and Microsoft Fabric resources. Metadata for for these resources is automatically inventoried and can be searched using the Microsoft Purview Data Catalog.

Access to this version of Microsoft Purview depends on your organization's current relationship with Microsoft Purview; whether you're a new Microsoft Purview user, if you have existing accounts, or if you're already using other services like Microsoft Fabric. For more information, see, how to access the free version of Microsoft Purview governance solutions.

Free version limitations

  • In the free version of Microsoft Purview governance solutions, there's a limitation of 1,000 annotated assets. An annotated asset applies both to live view assets that have been curated, or custom assets added using the Microsoft Purview Data Map REST APIs. For example, if your account has 50 live view data assets, and you add descriptions and classifications to 15 of those assets, you have 15 annotated assets, and can have 985 more before you reach your limit. A description and a classification on the same asset count only as one annotated asset.
  • In the free version, only data curators are able to access any resources added to the data map using the REST APIs.
  • If your free version tenant shows three months of no activity, we have the right to clean up the account and might remove the unused resources.

Supported applications

Only a core subset of Microsoft Purview's governance solutions with limited capabilities are currently available in the free version:

Data Catalog

Users can browse and search for their data assets in Azure. They're able to explore their Azure assets to discover reliable data sources in their environment.

Azure assets in your data estate are available in the Microsoft Purview Data Catalog without any set up needed. The data catalog automatically records data schema so users can explore data sources before accessing them. Data owners can add information like description, classifications, and contacts to their assets to provide users a more complete picture of their data estate.

For more information, see our search and browse documentation, our metadata curation documentation, and our documentation about resources available for live view.

Data share

Microsoft Purview Data Sharing enables organizations to securely share data both within the organization, or cross organizations with business partners and customers. You can share or receive data with just a few clicks. Data providers can centrally manage and monitor data sharing relationships, and revoke sharing at any time. Data consumers can access received data with their own analytics tools and turn data into insights.

For more information, see our introduction to Data Sharing.

Supported data sources

Currently, the free version of Microsoft Purview governance solutions supports these governance data sources using live view:

  • Azure Blob Storage
  • Azure Data Lake Storage Gen 2
  • Azure SQL Database
  • Azure subscriptions
  • Microsoft Fabric

You can annotate and curate assets that are available via live view, or use our APIs to create new entities.

Access the free version of Microsoft Purview governance solutions

The free version of Microsoft Purview governance solutions uses a single, organization-wide instance of Microsoft Purview. Access to the latest Microsoft Purview experience depends on your current relationship with Microsoft Purview; whether you're a new Microsoft Purview customer or an existing Microsoft Purview customer.

The free version of Microsoft Purview governance solutions uses the same location mappings as Microsoft 365, and maps to a location based on your Microsoft Entra ID home region. For more information, see the FAQ.

New Microsoft Purview customers

If you're an Azure Enterprise, Dynamics 365, Microsoft 365 Enterprise, Microsoft Fabric, Power Apps, or Power BI customer, to access the free version of Microsoft Purview governance solutions for your organization go to https://purview.microsoft.com. For more information about this access, see the FAQ.

If you're not an Azure Enterprise, Dynamics 365, Microsoft 365 Enterprise, Microsoft Fabric, Power Apps, or Power BI customer, we're currently making the free version of Microsoft Purview governance solutions available to organizations in batches. Go to https://purview.microsoft.com to check if it's available to your organization. If not:

  • You can create a Microsoft Purview account to access the enterprise version of Microsoft Purview.
  • You can wait until the free version of Microsoft Purview governance solutions is available to your organization, and check this document for updates.

Existing Microsoft Purview customers

If you're already using Microsoft Purview, your account is likely already upgraded to the enterprise version of Microsoft Purview.

You can check your organization's account type in the Microsoft Purview portal under the Settings gear icon, and View all settings.

Permissions

Access control in the free version of Microsoft Purview governance solutions is managed at the organization/tenant level.

All users are able to view data assets for sources where they have at least Read permissions already.

For other functionality, like metadata curation, you can assign this role:

Role Description
Data Catalog Curator Data Catalog curators can perform the create, read, modify, and delete actions on catalog data objects and establish relationships between objects.

For more information about this role and how to assign it, see our roles and permissions documentation.

Upgrade to enterprise

The enterprise version of Microsoft Purview has access to the rest of Microsoft Purview's available applications and data sources. You can upgrade to the enterprise version of Microsoft Purview by following the steps in our upgrade documentation.

When you upgrade, all your data from the free version of Microsoft Purview governance solutions will be migrated into the enterprise version. Currently the enterprise version will be hosted in the same location as the free version of Microsoft Purview governance solutions.

Applications available in free vs enterprise

Here's a brief comparison of the free and enterprise versions of Microsoft Purview:

Free Enterprise
Auto discovery of Azure data sources Collections, and glossary terms to organize your data map
Role group access control to platform and apps Fine-grained, collection-level access control to platform and apps
Definition and manual application of classifications and terms Automated application of classifications and terms
Manual descriptions, tags, and contacts Manual and Bulk descriptions, tags, and contacts.
Manual creation of assets using the data map APIs Full use of Microsoft Purview's REST APIs
Automated scans for the hybrid data estate
Workflows
Business rules
Support for business assets and managed attributes

Applications supported between versions of Microsoft Purview:

Application Free Enterprise Notes
Data Catalog x x Free supports browse and search, while enterprise supports advanced search and self-service data access
Data Estate Insights x Enterprise supports all available reports
Data Sharing x x
Data Policy x
Data Map x x Data map history is available in both the free and enterprise versions of Microsoft Purview.

For more information about the applications available in the enterprise version of Microsoft Purview, see our overview documentation.

Support for the free version of Microsoft Purview governance solutions

With the free version of Microsoft Purview governance solutions, you can't open support tickets for Microsoft Purview. You need to upgrade to the enterprise version of Microsoft Purview for support.

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