Storage Capacity Enforcement

Understand the effects of capacity enforcement within Microsoft Dataverse and how to maintain

storage to prevent capacity enforcement.

2020

Download the latest version of the Playbook here: https://aka.ms/CapacityEnforcementPlaybook

PURPOSE

This playbook is intended to help customers identify their current capacity usage, understand how their storage is

calculated, and develop an ongoing plan to manage capacity to prevent environment enforcements due to over-

capacity issues.

THE SITUATION

Microsoft has

implemented additional

enforcements to storage

capacity for Microsoft

Dataverse environments.

BASED ON EXPERIENCES TO DATE, CAPACITY PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT DEPENDS ON

THESE FACTORS:

Understanding the enforcement

Assessing your storage plan

Monitoring your consumption

Identifying retention policies and managing data to those policies

Developing an archival strategy to retain older, rarely used data

Having a plan to account for an increase in data

SUCCESS

In summary, this guide will help you:

Understand storage capacity

Prevent capacity overage and enforcement

Determine your current storage capacity and consumption

Identify what is consuming capacity

Review your environment strategy

Reduce and maintain storage capacity

Audiences:

Partners

Customers

Business

Technical

INSIDE THIS PLAYBOOK:

Chapter 2

EXPLORE

Learn more about

your storage

capacity

Chapter 3

IMPLEMENT

Create and

implement a plan

to reduce and

manage storage

2

Appendix

Available

resources

Chapter 1

INITIATE

Understand

capacity

enforcement

and how it will

affect your

organization

Chapter 2

EXPLORE

Learn more about your

storage needs and storage

capacity

Review your current storage

capacity and consumption• Power Platform admin center

• Download all tables

Understand current application

lifecycle management (ALM)

practices

• Environment needs

• Data within environments (full

vs. minimal)

• Data retention needs and definition

Resources

• New Microsoft Dataverse storage

capacity

• Legacy storage capacity

• View self-service storage capacity

Understand capacity

enforcement and how it will

affect your organization

Learn about storage capacity• Power Platform admin center

• Capacity calculation

• Environment storage

Why is this important?

• Enforcement will limit some admin

operations

• Help customers maintain a healthy

storage plan

• Identify potential inefficiencies

leading to increased storage

consumption

Resources

• What's new about storage

• What happens when my

organization exceeds storage

entitlements?

Chapter 1

INITIATEChapter 3

IMPLEMENT

Create and implement a

plan to reduce and manage

storage

Refine ALM practices• Number of environments

• Full vs. minimal environments

• Update retention definitions

Manage storage capacity• Data archival

• Maintaining data within database,

log, and file storage

• Capacity add-ons

Resources

• Capacity add-ons

Storage Capacity EnforcementChapter 1: Initiate

Understanding storage capacity

StorageAll usage and entitlement

categories under one label, inclusive of all record types

Legacy

Storage models

Optimizing data management for database

storage, attachments, and audit logs

Technical

New

Storage capacity management: usage and entitlement across these

three categories:

Database capacityStore and manage

entity definitions and data

File capacityManage attachments, files,

photos, and videos

Log capacityRecord data changes over time

for analysis & reporting purposes

More Info: Licenses for the new storage modelMore Info: Licenses for the legacy storage model

Storage models

Two different storage models—new capacity

and legacy—are determined by your license

Some of the benefits of this change include:

• Scalability with purpose-built storage

management solutions

• Ability to enable new business scenarios

• Reduced need to free up storage space

• Support for a variety of data types

• Additional default and full user entitlements

• Flexibility to create new environments

Two versions of storage reporting

Business

Technical

Legacy Model New Model

Capacity Entitlements Capacity Entitlements

Default capacity

(Tenant)Accrued entitlement (per

full enterprise USL)

Default capacity (Tenant)

Accrued entitlement(per full enterprise USL)

Benefit

Storage 10 GB

5 GB

for every 20 full user

licenses

Microsoft Dataverse

Database Capacity10 GB 250 MB Entitlement per USL

Microsoft Dataverse File

Capacity20 GB 2 GB

Additional default and full

USL entitlement

Microsoft Dataverse Log

Capacity2 GB n/a

Additional default

entitlements

Add-on for production and non-production

environmentsCreate environments with available storage

Environment

type

Number of

Environments

Additional environments can be created when at least 1 GB of database capacity is available.

No need to purchase additional environments.

Non-

production1

Production 1

Storage models

Capacity entitlements

Business

Technical

Power Apps Power Automate and Power Virtual Agents Licensing Guide

Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide

Power Platform admin center

The Power Platform admin center is the tool

you should use to maintain visibility of storage

and consumption

Business

Technical

Administer Power Platform

Storage capacity

Capacity availability is defined by the user

SKUs purchased, self-service licensing, and

additional add-ons

Org (tenant) default

The capacity is defined by the product licensing

purchased

User licenses

With every user license, your organization gets an

additional amount of capacity

Additional capacity

Any additional capacity add-ons purchased

Business

Technical

View self-service storage capacity

Capacity overage and enforcement

Capacity overage

You should be within limits for your entitled

capacity for database, log, and file

Storage consumption is rolled up to a tenant level.

It is the sum of all environment storage within a

tenant. Your tenant needs to stay within their limits

to avoid capacity enforcement.

Overage doesn’t specifically mean that your tenant

will experience enforcement. However, you should

always evaluate your usage to stay within your

entitled capacity.

Business

Technical

Capacity deficiency

File

Log

Database

File deficiency can be covered by Log or Database

Log deficiency can be covered by Database

Database deficiency is always deficient

Business

Technical

Overage scenarios

Database storage is over capacity

• 10 GB over in database usage

• 200 GB available in file storage

Type Entitled Consumed

Database 100 GB 110 GB

Log 10 GB 5 GB

File 400 GB 200 GB

Log storage is over capacity

• 10 GB over in log usage

• 5 GB available in database storage

Type Entitled Consumed

Database 100 GB 95 GB

Log 10 GB 20 GB

File 400 GB 200 GB

DEFICIENT

Below are examples of overage scenarios that illustrate if a

tenant is deficient in capacity or not

DEFICIENT

Technical

Example storage capacity scenarios, overage enforcement

Overage scenarios

File storage is over capacity

• 90 GB over in file storage

• 85 GB available (80 GB database + 5

GB log)

Log storage is over capacity

• 10 GB over in log usage

• 20 GB available in database storage

DEFICIENT Not Deficient

Type Entitled Consumed

Database 100 GB 20 GB

Log 10 GB 5 GB

File 200 GB 290 GB

Type Entitled Consumed

Database 100 GB 80 GB

Log 10 GB 20 GB

File 400 GB 200 GB

Below are examples of overage scenarios that illustrate if a

tenant is deficient in capacity or not

Technical

Example storage capacity scenarios, overage enforcement

Capacity enforcement

Once you are deficient in capacity, you will no longer be able to

complete certain admin operations

Business

Technical

Storage Capacity EnforcementChapter 2: Explore

Review currentconsumption

Power Platform admin center

Functionality within the Power Platform admin center will allow you to

review your current consumption

Technical

Administer Power Platform

Storage capacity

View all environments and their total file, log,

and database consumption

File

• Attachment

• AnnotationBase

• Any custom or out-of-the-box entity that

has fields of datatype file or image (full

size)

• Any entity that is used by one or more

installed Insights applications and ends in

– Analytics

Log

• AuditBase

• PlugInTraceLogBase

Database

• All other entities are counted for your

database

Technical

Storage capacity tab

Environment usage

View detailed information of consumption of

each storage type

• Actual database usage

• Top database tables and their growth over time

• Actual file usage

• Top files tables and their growth over time

• Actual log usage

• Top tables and their growth over time

Technical

Review application lifecyclemanagement practices

Environment planning

Dev(s) QA UAT Pre-prod Production

Create a storage plan by understanding environment needs based on

ALM strategy

Business

Technical

Establishing an Environment Strategy for Microsoft Power Platform

Environment planning

Create a storage plan by understanding environment needs based on

ALM strategy

Art. 6 GDPR – Lawfulness of processing

–

Development • Sample data set

QA • Sample data set

User testing • Near production data set

Technical

Environment planning

A storage plan example (database storage)

• Dev environments = minimal data

• QA environments = enough data to validate current scenarios

• UAT (user acceptance testing) environments = sufficient data to allow end-to-end testing by users

• Training/staging environments

• Training environments = significant data to ensure all user scenarios are adequately represented

• Staging environments = no application data

• Used as a production-equivalent placeholder of the production solution

Dev

Plan – 6 GB

Solution Dev 1* - 1.5

GB

Solution Dev 2* - 1.5

GB

Solution Base - 3 GB

QA

Plan – 11.5 GB

QA Prod* - 4 GB

QA Dev - 4 GB

Integration Test* - 3.5

GB

UAT

Plan – 52 GB

UAT Prod* - 25 GB

UAT Dev - 27 GB

Pre-prod

Plan – 78 GB

Training* - 75 GB

Staging* - 3 GB

Production

PROD - 80 GB

Technical

Environment planning

A storage plan example (database storage)

Dev

Plan – 6 GB

Solution Dev 1* - 1.5

GB

Solution Dev 2* - 1.5

GB

Solution Base - 3 GB

QA

Plan – 11.5 GB

QA Prod* - 4 GB

QA Dev - 4 GB

Integration Test* - 3.5

GB

UAT

Plan – 52 GB

UAT Prod* - 25 GB

UAT Dev - 27 GB

Pre-prod

Plan – 78 GB

Training* - 75 GB

Staging* - 3 GB

Production

PROD - 80 GB

• Example planned storage = 227.5 GB

• * indicate optional instances = 113.5 GB

• A clear plan allows for proper capacity purchasing to prevent capacity enforcement

• Clearly understand and define your approximate storage needs BEFORE you start deploying a complex environment

model

• Ensure your storage plan includes growth over time and enough additional capacity to address potentially unforeseen

needs (POCs, significant unplanned data growth, and so on)

Technical

Data retention

Retention policy

Understand what data you need to keep and for how long

Business

Technical

While determining your data retention policies, it’s important to

classify your data

Business

Technical

Master

Master data are static objects in

your system like Accounts,

Contacts, Products. This data set

is, usually, smaller than

operational and transactional

data set.

Retention advice/example:

- As long as related operational

data exists

- X years according to external

regulations or internal policy

Operational

Operational data is module

related data such as Sales,

Customer Service, etc. As an

example, these could be

Opportunity, Lead, Case, Project,

etc.

Retention advice/example:

- Closed more than 12 months

ago or created in last 24 months

- X years according to external

regulations or internal policy

Transactional

Transactional data are

interactions, in most cases

activities, related with master and

operational data. This is usually

the largest data set within an

instance.

Retention advice/example:

- Created within 2 years or more

- To seed Sales Insights

algorithms, suggestion is, at least,

120 days since closed/modified

- X years according to external

regulations or internal policy

Move older data, defined by retention policies, from Microsoft

Dataverse to a different storage repository

Business

Technical

Prevent excessive growth

Certain Dynamics 365 apps settings can help prevent unnecessary storage growth

Email tracking

Maximum file size

Auditing

Automatically delete completed real-time workflow jobs

Delete Async Plugin Logs if plugin succeeds, save Dynamics 365 storage space (MVP)

Technical

Creating a plan

Reduce Maintain Expand

Business

Technical

Business

Technical

Storage Capacity EnforcementChapter 3: Implement

Reduce current consumption

With an environment plan, evaluate current environments and make

the necessary changes

Technical

Reduce current consumption

After defining a retention policy and implementing an archival

solution (if applicable), reduce your consumption

File Storage

Remove email attachments using

Advanced Find

Remove email messages using a bulk

deletion job

Remove notes with attachments

using Advanced Find

Remove notes with attachments

using a bulk deletion job

Log Storage

Delete audit logs

Delete plug-in trace logs using bulk

deletion job

Database Storage

Delete bulk email and workflow

environments using a bulk deletion

job

Evaluate and delete suspended

workflows

Remove bulk duplicate detection

jobs and associated copies of

duplicate records

Delete bulk import environments

using a bulk deletion job

Delete bulk deletion job

environments using a bulk deletion

job

Remove unrequired entities and

fields from Relevance Search

Delete imported records

Technical

Maintain storage consumption

Continuously maintaining your data prevents uncontrolled storage

growth and major data purges, which can take time to complete.

Technical

Unexpected storage growth occurs after releases or data migrations

Table size (GB)

Table name 30-Aug 6-Sep

WoW

Change 13-Sep

WoW

Change 20-Sep

WoW

Change

4 Week

Growth

ImportDataBase 0.76 18 17.24 65.34 47.34 21.5622 -43.7778 20.8022

msdyn_entityrankingruleBase 0.17 2 1.83 3.74 1.74 1.6456 -2.0944 1.4756

msdyn_playbookinstanceBase 0.2 1 0.8 1.1 0.1 0 -1.1 -0.2

msdyncrm_leadentityfieldBase 0.15 0.22 0.07 0.4598 0.2398 0.708092 0.248292 0.558092

msevtmgt_eventvendorBase 0.16 10 9.84 16.5 6.5 10.89 -5.61 10.73

msdyn_sessiontemplateBase 0.19 1 0.81 0.44 -0.56 0.9196 0.4796 0.7296

msfp_projectBase 0.19 0.75 0.56 1.32 0.57 3.1944 1.8744 3.0044

msdyn_flowcardtypeBase 0.16 1.1 0.94 2.178 1.078 5.03118 2.85318 4.87118

Technical

Purchase additional storage capacity

Purchase additional storage capacity

After completing your environment planning, you may need to

purchase more capacity add-ons

Capacity add-ons

Business

Technical

Storage Capacity EnforcementAppendix

Below are the communications sent to customers regarding overage

and the capacity enforcements

2/28/2020 – MC205095

6/22/2020 – Targeted emails to customers over or approaching

limit

6/22/2020 –

A1: MC216987

A2: MC216988

B1: MC216989

B2: MC216990

7/21/2020 – MC218982

Message Center

Business

Technical

What are some of the questions commonly being asked?

New Storage FAQ

Legacy Storage FAQ

Business

Technical

Thank you!

This playbook is provided “as-is.” Information and views expressed in this playbook, including URL and other Internet Web

site references, may change without notice. You bear the risk of using it.

Some examples are for illustration only and are fictitious. No real association is intended or inferred.

This playbook does not provide you with any legal rights to any intellectual property in any Microsoft product. You may copy

and use this playbook for your internal, reference purposes.

© 2020 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.