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Microsoft plans Dynamics 365 added storage price hike, but better flexibility on Customer Engagement instances

by Jason Gumpert
Editor, MSDynamicsWorld.com

Microsoft is planning to increase the costs of additional storage on Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement (D365CE) and Unified Operations in October 2018 while adding flexibility to how resources are consumed across cloud instances.

Based on Microsoft guidance to partners, the price of added database storage will jump from $5 per GB to $40 per GB for both services.

The added storage option for D365CE will be rebranded from "Additional Database Storage" to "CDS for Apps Database Capacity". With the new approach, customers "will be able to create their own instances of any size (min 1GB) – no production and non-production add-on SKUs required", according to Microsoft guidance.

Microsoft is positioning the change as a step to simplify storage purchases and add flexibility to management of Dynamics 365 solutions. The guidance to partners, from a slide deck, states:

[We are changing Storage for Customer Engagement to] simplify the way customers purchase Dynamics additional capacity for their service. With this change customers may purchase single [sic] SKU and have the flexibility to create production or non-production instances of any size (minimum 1GB). With this simpler model separate purchase of production and non-productions [sic] instance add-on SKUs will no longer be required.

While the 800% price jump in storage pricing may anger some customers, there is a potential gain to be had in running multiple instances of D365CE. As one partner explained, the change means that adding extra instances of D365CE will be free. Today these added instances can cost $150 per month for Sandbox and $500 per month for Production.

Details on the price changes for Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, or Unified Operations, will be revealed later, Microsoft indicated.

Customer Engagement Data Management Dynamics 365 Dynamics AX Dynamics CRM Finance and Operations
About Jason Gumpert

As the editor of MSDynamicsWorld.com, Jason oversees all editorial content on the site and at our events, as well as providing site management and strategy. He can be reached at jgumpert@msdynamicsworld.com.

Prior to co-founding MSDynamicsWorld.com, Jason was a Principal Software Consultant at Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC), where he implemented solutions, trained customers, managed software development, and spent some time in the pre-sales engineering organization. He has also held consulting positions at CSC Consulting and Monitor Group.

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