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reviewer1984410 - PeerSpot reviewer
Enterprise Solution Architect at a government with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Takes into account critical regulations from around the world, which is a big advantage
Pros and Cons
  • "It's certainly easy to work with all Microsoft data sources like SQL Server, Synapse, and data lakes, but it also has great functionality working with Oracle. And of particular interest to us is the ability to pull data from Excel, CVS files, and other types of flat files."
  • "One area for improvement is the detection of data types. This is really important. It has some of that functionality, but I consider it very limited. Maybe they can add some custom programming or machine learning could be particularly useful for the detection of the nature of the data."

What is our primary use case?

We use it for the creation of enterprise PSA, as well as for our enterprise data catalog and data governance.

This is a type of pilot project or proof of concept. Our organization wants to see how it works, how complex the maintenance side will be, and how effective and efficient it will be.

How has it helped my organization?

It enables us to show compliance in real-time. However, because it is a pilot project for us, we are not showing the information to other parties yet.

It has definitely helped us reduce our time to action on insider threats. Finding proper data is always challenging in a big organization and this is a really positive aspect of Purview.

What is most valuable?

The first thing that we were particularly interested in is data lineage. It makes it pretty easy to connect and scan data sources, and do any kind of additional steps like Synapse or SSIS processing.

Overall, I would laud its ease of use, intuitive interface, and easy navigation. It's a very user-friendly product that is easy to work with.

In addition, we considered the issue of multi-cloud and multi-platform environments when we were trying to identify the best tools that would serve all the requirements of our organization. Currently, we are not directly pulling data from AWS. We are working with Azure. But we have the potential in the future to consider such options. This feature is very valuable because we are planning to establish automated data-pulling from AWS.

And the solution's data connector platform for the ingestion of data from non-Microsoft data sources is very easy to use. I investigated what data sources it can work with. It's certainly easy to work with all Microsoft data sources like SQL Server, Synapse, and data lakes, but it also has great functionality working with Oracle. And of particular interest to us is the ability to pull data from Excel, CVS files, and other types of flat files.

Another particularly nice feature is its integration with other services. This is one of the biggest advantages of the solution. For example, if you need to store a key for database access, it's easy to integrate with key vault services.

And a feature that is very important to us is the fact that Purview was built taking into account critical regulations from around the world. Before we started working with Purview, we put great effort into evaluating its capabilities and functionality. We created a comparative matrix with other tools and this was one of the factors we included. We considered it a big positive for Purview.

The scanning of data sources can be scheduled to execute automatically. That is the only automation we are using within the solution.

What needs improvement?

One area for improvement is the detection of data types. This is really important. It has some of that functionality, but I consider it very limited. Maybe they can add some custom programming, or machine learning could be particularly useful for the detection of the nature of the data.

If it could tell us, for example, when a given type of data is a social security number, that would be helpful. Currently, we need to open it and determine what the format is. We would like to know if a given type of data is PII data.

Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Purview Data Governance
June 2025
Learn what your peers think about Microsoft Purview Data Governance. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: June 2025.
860,632 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Microsoft Purview for almost two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I found some defects, through my interaction with the solution, in the reporting system. Purview has its own reporting and I found a function that apparently is not working. There are some bugs in that section, but other than that, everything looks okay. It works well.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We haven't experimented with scaling it, but my perception is that it's very scalable.

How are customer service and support?

We haven't had to contact Microsoft's tech support.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We didn't have a previous solution.

How was the initial setup?

The setup was pretty straightforward. It took us about one week, but a lot of the dependencies are not directly related to Purview. We had to obtain a password and user and that takes some time.

Microsoft takes care of patching, so I haven't seen any need for maintenance by us. It's on the cloud and they take care of it. We don't need to worry about that part at all and that is one of the big advantages of a cloud system.

What about the implementation team?

We did everything in-house. I had architecture and administrative support, but I did the actual work with Azure alone.

I'm handling the proof of concept work. No other organizations have access to it. We don't want people to start using something that is not really complete yet.

What was our ROI?

Because this is a proof of concept, we haven't seen direct cost savings, but we see it having a positive impact on development work, particularly for BI folks who are interested in self-service and building reports for themselves. This is a very good exploration tool.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Microsoft Purview is the best option I have encountered when it comes to price. Maybe some of my information is outdated, but Microsoft offered it so that you could use it almost without paying. This was a really nice aspect. 

I don't know how Microsoft's pricing stands today, but for us, it was very cheap and effective. We are still paying some money but it's not significant. 

They should look to keep the pricing moderate in the future.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We compared Purview with other solutions, but not on a practical level. We only compared it with the information we were able to find on the internet, including the documentation and the functionality, but we did not install or do anything with the other solutions.

What other advice do I have?

For a large enterprise, it's very important to have tools like this. It's especially useful for IT people who are dealing with data science or who need to find or investigate data or find out what data an organization has. It's also useful for those who maintain a central data warehouse and for people who want self-servicing business intelligence.

At this point, Purview has not reduced the number of solutions we interact with. In the future, we will consider that option. At this point, it operates as a standalone for us, because it is a pilot project in our organization.

Microsoft Purview is not yet a leader in data cataloging or data governance, but I'm pretty sure it will be, given how the tools are evolving and the functionality it already has. At the same time, I'm certainly looking for some of its functionality to improve, including easier integration with Microsoft Power BI.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer2314044 - PeerSpot reviewer
Team Lead at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Gives us clarity and visibility at a granular level
Pros and Cons
  • "The best part is that I can create classifications per my requirements. I use it to classify multiple platforms like AWS, GCP, Azure, and different file sharing systems."
  • "Support should be improved in the form of good documentation and video lessons where a person can check things out. There is a community, but it takes a lot of time if we want to get an answer to a question."

What is our primary use case?

The main use case is DLP, for alerts and insider risk management.

It is very important for our organization because ours is a very data-heavy organization. We process a lot of data on a daily basis, and we need to check where the data is coming from, how it is being classified, where it is being sent, and whether it is being used by the intended user. We need all the security controls.

How has it helped my organization?

We have clarity and visibility at a granular level. We can check data at rest or in transit—where data is coming from and where it is going—on-premises as well as in cloud solutions. That's how it is helpful.

The attack surface has been reduced significantly. Earlier, we didn't have any visibility into it.Now, we review every log to know where data is coming from and where it is going, as well as who is handling it. And all our employees also know that if they are doing anything mischievous, someone is watching them.

In terms of time saved, we write a policy, get an alert, and work on it. It has reduced a lot of human intervention while checking all the logs. It gives us the log source that we can check directly.

What is most valuable?

The best part is that I can create classifications per my requirements. I use it to classify multiple platforms like AWS, GCP, Azure, and different file sharing systems.

I also like the auto-labeling and the encryption of data when it is being sent out of the organization.

We also need complete coverage for every device that is connecting in our environment, so it's important that Purview can connect to iOS, Mac, and Android devices.

We just started using Purview DLP for macOS endpoints. We deployed it and
we are fine-tuning the policies. The macOS support is a very important factor because most of the teams handle data. We need to check whether they are sending any source code and how they are handling the data. We need to know whether they are using a key management system to handle secrets.

The fact that Purview was built to account for regulations around the world is important for us. It has to keep updated regarding all regulations because our users are across the globe. If we don't know the regulation data, retention policies, and other policies regarding the data, we may not be in compliance with those policies, and our company will have to pay a hefty fine.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Microsoft Purview for about two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable product. The stability is an eight out of 10.

How are customer service and support?

Support should be improved in the form of good documentation and video lessons where a person can check things out. There is a community, but it takes a lot of time if we want to get an answer to a question. There should be an easy-to-reach place where, if you're stuck, the support system is there.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

How was the initial setup?

The deployment was straightforward. We got help from Microsoft support's FastTrack. They helped us deploy it.

As for maintenance, we have to update the policies.

What other advice do I have?

Overall, the only problem is the support system, which is a bit costly. But the product is good.

Our process for potential policy violations is to first check whether something is a true positive or a false positive; we check the document that is being sent. We then check it from our team's side, the responder's side, and then we check it with the compliance team. We look at the policies that have been violated and also check the business use case where something is being sent outside the organization. It's a manual effort for one of our teams.

As for educating users on how to best handle sensitive data, that is done by our compliance team. They do awareness training for our end users and send them awareness emails as well as monthly connections where they give them awareness information about how to handle sensitive data.

We are only using Purview for DLP on the incident-response side and for data protection. So I'm not sure whether it has reduced the number of solutions in the stack we are using, but it is very useful for us.

And although I'm not involved with the compliance side, we can check the compliance dashboard to deal with compliance-related issues. We have a dedicated team that checks it.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Purview Data Governance
June 2025
Learn what your peers think about Microsoft Purview Data Governance. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: June 2025.
860,632 professionals have used our research since 2012.
reviewer2134215 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Easily integrates with other Microsoft solutions, with straightforward implementations, but the performance has room for improvement
Pros and Cons
  • "The availability of pre-designed policies tailored to specific geolocations and customer requirements is a valuable feature."
  • "The Microsoft Purview data connector platform, which supports ingestion from non-Microsoft data sources, can be somewhat complex."

What is our primary use case?

Microsoft Purview has several built-in solutions, including data loss prevention, e-discovery, life cycle management, and information protection. It functions as a DLP tool and includes a compliance portal that enables integration with various other solutions to ensure compliance. Therefore, it provides readily available integrations.

The solution deployed as a SaaS.

How has it helped my organization?

It is crucial for Microsoft Purview to offer data protection across various cloud platforms because many customers are now utilizing cloud technology. It is not always the case that everyone will use Azure exclusively, as many customers may have multiple cloud vendors. Therefore, it is essential to support multifunctional or multi-vendor flows to meet the needs of these customers.

To ensure proper functionality and data security, we need to accommodate a wide range of operating systems. Therefore, our solution must support multiple vendors or be multi-tenant, allowing us to have visibility over all devices within our network.

It is important that Microsoft Purview is globally compliant. The solution comes with pre-defined rules and policies, providing us with a wide range of capabilities to manage multiple geolocations simultaneously.

Microsoft Purview's data loss protection feature is helpful in remediating policy violations as it provides extensive forensic data. This includes information such as the user, the activity performed, the starting point, and the flow path of the activity. Additionally, the tool has forensic analytics capabilities that enable us to identify and prioritize policy violations effectively.

Educating users on data loss protection can be straightforward. For example, Microsoft's product includes integrated guides on the console. Whether the user is an individual or an administrator, if they are unsure how to use the product, there are supported guides and links available to assist them. This makes the experience easier and ensures that best practices are followed when managing data loss protection.

It was important that Microsoft extended Purview's data loss prevention to Mac OS endpoints because it enables us to manage all devices on our network through a single console.

Microsoft Purview has simplified my work with its effortless deployment.

Microsoft Purview has decreased the need for multiple solutions to communicate with each other. If we were to discuss other DLP solutions, an additional agent would need to be installed. However, Purview utilizes Defender, which enables it to capture data and obtain all necessary information without requiring the deployment of any other agents. Therefore, there is no need for any additional agents to be installed.

The solution provides visibility into the state of our organization by giving us inventory details and maintaining an updated version or list of the inventories that are currently in use. This allows us to have clear visibility of the devices we are using, specifically end devices. It also enables us to easily manage non-active or disconnected devices.

Microsoft Purview enables us to show our compliance in real-time. 

Microsoft Purview includes multiple predefined sets of compliance rules that can be compared to our specific compliance requirements. We can then map these rules to our policies.

The agent saves us the time and effort of manual reporting. When the device is active, the agents also become active and start reporting. The reporting process takes the same amount of time regardless of which policy we use.

Microsoft Purview helps us to maintain compliance by providing a checklist of tasks that need to be completed, along with mapping.

What is most valuable?

The ease of integration with other Microsoft solutions is the most valuable feature. 

The availability of pre-designed policies tailored to specific geolocations and customer requirements is also a valuable feature.

What needs improvement?

The Microsoft Purview data connector platform, which supports ingestion from non-Microsoft data sources, can be somewhat complex. For instance, when using Linux or Mac OS, additional agents are required. However, deploying these agents can lead to high resource consumption, such as increased CPU, hard disk, and RAM usage.

The performance has room for improvement. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for three months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Microsoft Purview is a SaaS platform, so its stability is very good.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is all based on the license. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward. For our implementation strategy, we began by collecting inventory details. We then identified the supported devices by their operating systems, separating them into Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. For Linux devices, we created software packages offline and deployed them to the IT assistance team. After the agents started reporting on the console, we restarted the Linux devices. For Windows devices, we were able to connect directly. First, we were in the POC phase, testing a few devices and developing the rules and policies, followed by applying the rules to all the devices.

The number of people required for the deployment depends on our infrastructure and the size of our environment.

What about the implementation team?

The implementation was completed in-house.

What other advice do I have?

I give the solution a seven out of ten.

As a consulting firm, we utilize several Data Loss Prevention solutions such as Symantec DLP, Forcepoint DLP, and Microsoft Purview. Our recommendations to clients are based on their specific needs and financial plan.

Microsoft Purview comprises various solutions, and I recommend acquainting oneself with all of its aspects to make the most of the tool.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
PeerSpot user
reviewer2092704 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Architect at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
Real User
Enables us to track, control, and restrict our sensitive data
Pros and Cons
  • "It gives you the opportunity to know your data and apply policies around it. If those policies are flouted, you can always track what's happening. You have options such as alerting the person who is committing that action, or you can take automatic action by blocking, for example, an email that is been sent externally. It's very useful."

    What is our primary use case?

    We use it for the text of emails. We use it to keep track of groups as well. We also use it to go through the mailbox of a former employee to retrieve the mailbox for a new employee. We use it for e-discovery and content search in emails across our organization.

    We use it internally for just a few use cases. I know there are a lot of connections between it and other Microsoft applications and multiple clouds, but we don't have those use cases currently.

    We carry out implementations for customers on these particular solutions. For example, if we're selling a Microsoft 365 solution to them, we use it to secure their data, especially their emails through backup, and SharePoint.

    How has it helped my organization?

    It has improved our ability to retain data and retrieve the data that we need at a future date.

    We are also able to see how sensitive data flows across the organization, so it has been very helpful in telling us where that data is originally from and where it is being sent to. We have the ability to track it and control and restrict it from going outside our organization. We've benefited from that a lot.

    Purview also enables us to show compliance in real time. We can see what the requirements are and then we can apply them across the organization. That has been very helpful.

    It has also helped us to stay updated and make sure that we are not out of compliance. It keeps us updated with any new policies that are required for organizations like ours. That's of great value to us.

    Another advantage is that it has definitely reduced the time-to-action on insider threats, although we don't measure that at the moment. But from experience, we can tell how much it is saving us in investigations, compared to before we had the solution.

    What is most valuable?

    The most valuable feature is the information protection, the way we're able to retain emails.

    Another aspect that is very important is that Purview has been built to take critical regulations from around the world into account. It gives us trust that all of the compliance requirements are being met and that we just have to take care of our data. We don't have to worry about whether the regulations are being met around the infrastructure and we can just focus on our data. It's very important to us to have that level of trust in our systems.

    Also, Purview's data loss protection for remediating policy violations is very good. It gives you the opportunity to know your data and apply policies around it. If those policies are flouted, you can always track what's happening. You have options such as alerting the person who is committing that action, or you can take automatic action by blocking, for example, an email that is being sent externally. It's very useful.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I've been using it since as far back as when it was Security and Compliance Center, before there was a separation between compliance and security. That happened around 2019, so I've been using it since 2019.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    The stability is great. Like every SaaS application, there are infrastructure issues, maybe once a year. Overall, it's good.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    The scalability is also great.

    How are customer service and support?

    The service level agreement is excellent and the support follow-up is also great. They have good knowledge.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

    What was our ROI?

    In terms of ROI, my bosses take care of that calculation, but I know we are getting benefit and value from Purview.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    The categorization within the licensing could be improved. There are a lot of solutions within Microsoft Purview. If the licensing could be a bit clearer and the solutions could be better categorized according to function and across multiple environments, that would be excellent. The licensing is very confusing.

    The pricing, for the solutions and value being provided, is fair. But that ties back to what I said about the licensing. There are a lot of standalone solutions you can get, and there are different licensing options for them. Depending on what you need, you can have a cost-effective solution; you can figure out your cost and benefit. It's affordable.

    What other advice do I have?

    We are still exploring whether Purview can help reduce the number of solutions that we have interacting with each other. There are a lot of solutions within Microsoft Purview, but we still have some data that is on-prem and we are still looking at how we can expand and connect to those areas. It's something that is in progress.

    In terms of maintenance, it's a SaaS solution, so the applications are automatically updated. There's almost zero maintenance. We do have to take care of configuration and updating preferences. I am able to handle that myself.

    My advice is to develop a clear use case and a roadmap, perhaps from a consultant if you don't have the time, or spend some time doing research on it, because there are a lot of great solutions within Microsoft Purview. You need to have a strategy for the way you combine the solutions together.

    Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
    PeerSpot user
    reviewer1967262 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Data & Analytics Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
    MSP
    Saves significant time over manual data documentation and data catalog creation, but data lineage needs improvement
    Pros and Cons
    • "Instead of having to manually write down which tables and columns exist and then describe them, you can do that process in one go, by simply connecting to a source. That's a huge time-saver and a great benefit of Purview."
    • "Although you can explore the data, that creates a great interest in data lineage or the data flow. How does it go from a source to a platform to a Power BI report, for example? It is possible, to some extent, to see that with Purview, but the lineage feature requires some manual work on the development side or more work from Microsoft to improve on it."

    What is our primary use case?

    The primary purpose is to catalog all the different data sources. The idea is to get insight into what is available and, more importantly, to document and better understand the data quickly and easily. You're not doing any manual work, you're just scanning sources, which means you can automate it. It automates the majority of the documenting process.

    How has it helped my organization?

    The most important benefit is its data documentation and the data catalog. It saves a lot of time compared to doing those things manually. Normally, when you want to describe your sources and get an overview of what is available, it takes a lot of time for data engineers and other people in the company to document the data. That whole issue is eliminated by using Purview.

    Also, the fact that you can easily view your metadata helps with data exploration. A lot of the time, there are so many sources at a company that at some point, most people don't even know what is available anymore. A really key feature is that not just one person but lots of people can access it for the same price, to do data exploration. They can all see what is available and decide what they want to see in a company report, for example.

    The beauty of Purview is that it's all about a central location where everyone goes. I wouldn't recommend creating multiple Purview instances, although you might have one for production and non-production. But, ideally, you would just have one Purview for your entire organization and then provide access to multiple people to make use of it.

    On the documenting side, in particular, it saves a lot of time, and time is money, especially when you are dealing with people entering data and information into Excel. That can be replaced by Purview and that saves a lot of time. Purview also gives you information that you can act upon. Instead of finding out too late, you can act earlier, and save money in that sense.

    What is most valuable?

    What I like the most about Purview is the fact that you can really easily connect to data sources and retrieve the metadata in a batch manner. Instead of having to manually write down which tables and columns exist and then describe them, you can do that process in one go, by simply connecting to a source. That's a huge time-saver and a great benefit of Purview.

    The solution takes into account critical data compliance regulations from around the world and that is one of the most important aspects of Purview. New laws are being enforced for data compliance and a lot of companies have a great interest in this feature of Purview. I think Microsoft is going to be focusing on that for the next couple of years to help organizations improve on data compliance.

    In terms of reducing time-to-action, if you set up a clever rule that gets applied to your scan—it would just take some time to create that rule—in theory, whenever you are scanning your data you could identify something that is going on and act upon it. But I haven't seen that in practice yet.

    What needs improvement?

    The fact that Purview delivers data protection across multiple platforms, including AWS and GCP, is really important, but I feel the tool can mature further in that area. You can set up rules and scan your data and then you can figure out whether your data is secure and compliant, but feel that Microsoft could improve on this and add more features to the tool. I think they will do so over time. The solution has only been generally available since last year, so it's still quite early in terms of maturity. The multiple platforms feature is very important and there is potential there.

    A bit of a downside is that although you can explore the data, that creates a great interest in data lineage or the data flow. How does it go from a source to a platform to a Power BI report, for example? It is possible, to some extent, to see that with Purview, but the lineage feature requires some manual work on the development side or more work from Microsoft to improve on it.

    The data lineage is effective and useful when you are using all Microsoft products, but as soon as there's any complexity or you have a different tool in between, like Databricks for data transformations in your platform, for example, the lineage isn't going to be added in Purview because there is no connection to it. On the lineage side, a lot more can be done, but there is a lot of potential.

    An additional feature I would like to see is in the following scenario. Suppose you have your sources scanned and you have all the tables listed in Purview. Right now, to update and label them, or to group them, would take a lot of time because you have to manually click on the assets and the tables that you have. But given that a database can have hundreds of tables, it would be helpful if you could update the assets in batch and, possibly, multi-select them. That would be a nice addition.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been involved with Microsoft Purview from the private preview stage, which was about two or three years. At that stage, it was only being shared with certain companies and nothing could be shared externally. In that phase, I got to share what I learned from the tool with Microsoft.

    I haven't used it all the time since then, but more recently, I got to work with it for a few months so I got to see the latest update and changes that were made.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    It is quite stable in terms of the scans running and not failing. It's not going to be slow or not function when you do an action inside of Purview. The stability is great.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    It's really scalable, just like most things in Azure. You can add to it but it gets more expensive. You can add as many sources as you want, and the scanning of sources goes quite quickly, even for really big databases. The reason is that you're not copying any actual data, you're only getting the metadata, meaning a description of the tables and the schema, et cetera.

    How are customer service and support?

    I haven't had to use Microsoft's technical support for Purview.

    From my experience with other Microsoft Azure tools, the support is not bad, but it might take some time. Once you get someone working on it, an issue always gets resolved, but it can take a bit of time to get the right person involved to help you out.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    For documenting data I have used Excel. I've seen huge Excel files with lots of data descriptions, and they took a lot of time to create. 

    Also, on the data quality side of things, I have used an Azure data platform: an SQL database and a Power BI report. For example, if you're scanning data and you apply a rule to check if a column is empty so that you can classify it as "empty column," that would be a data quality rule. Instead of using Purview, I have used Azure.

    How was the initial setup?

    It's very straightforward. There are not that many fields to fill in initially. Connecting sources, the first step, didn't take a long time. You really quickly get to see things, especially when it comes to Azure sources. It's all integrated so you can connect really easily. You just need to have authentication rights assigned. So connecting is quite fast.

    The deployment is all-cloud. It's all Azure, which makes it really easy to deploy the tool really quickly. And if you have other data in the cloud, you can really easily connect to it.

    The second part that takes a bit longer is defining the data, just like you would normally describe your tables and your columns and all your data definitions in Excel. In Purview, that also takes a bit of time. You have to find the way to describe it most easily. You can use the rules while scanning your data and automatically label or classify the data. But creating those rules takes a bit of time: How are you going to scan the data and what rules do you apply?

    Getting the resources going just takes a day or two. But to connect to them and make things functionally available takes more time.

    It's a one-man job. Even for connecting to resources, all you need is an admin who can grant you all the rights that you need for those sources and you can really easily scan them. The part where you need more people is on the business side because you need to describe, understand, and classify your data. That takes a lot more people because one person might know something about the customer database and a different person might know something about the finance database.

    What was our ROI?

    There is an investment of time involved, but once you set up those rules and you have the sources to scan, it automatically checks your data. It takes time to set it all up, but over a longer period of time, you will actually save time and see a return on investment. How fast that happens depends on your organization and how many data sources you have, as well as on how many people are using Purview and how efficiently.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    You pay a minimum amount every month for the data map. You scan your sources and the metadata gets saved and then you pay for what is stored, which makes sense. However because there is a minimum amount, in the beginning, you might pay for more than you are using. That's something that some of my clients didn't like. That's why I say it's quite pricey; you're always paying a certain amount.

    It would be nice if it went to entirely pay-per-use. For example, on Azure, when you have storage accounts, you pay for exactly how much you store. That would be nice to see in Purview as well. And while it's pay-per-use, you pay for features as well. For example, you pay for the cataloging part, including describing your data and adding labels and classifications. I would like to see a standard price and exact pay-per-use. 

    I understand, in practice, that might not happen, but the pricing may be a bit overwhelming for some clients. They will say, "Hey, I'm already paying this much and now something else comes with another cost? Why is that?" It raises questions.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    I'm working at a company that is a Microsoft partner, so it's all Microsoft-first.

    We did do a quick analysis for a few other companies and there is some competition out there, but the other solutions are quite expensive. They are enterprise tools that are a bit more mature but the license costs $100,000 for some of them. Purview is pay-per-use and a lot of companies are interested in that. It's still quite expensive compared to most Azure components, but compared to the alternatives it costs less. That may be because it's not that advanced yet.

    What other advice do I have?

    My advice is to involve people from the business side who can describe data and describe business terms. That's what is most important. Otherwise, it's just going to stay a technical implementation and it won't be used, which would be a huge waste. From the start, involve the people with a mandate who can actually start using it in the future.

    Regarding its data connector platform for ingestion from non-Microsoft data sources, there are so many sources in the world that they have a ways to go there, but I do feel, especially in the last year, that the solution has grown a lot in that area. All the big, and most-used data sources, like Amazon, SAP, and many other sources, have been added, which is a great step. But if you work with sources that are more unique, the kind that are not used by many other companies, those are not available and you would have to write code in Purview for them. You can use the API that is available and you could insert metadata and lineage information into Purview, but that is a manual process. You would have to develop that for specific sources.

    Purview's natively integrated compliance across Azure, Dynamics 365, and Office 365 is also quite important, but I haven't worked on that myself.

    In my experience, Purview hasn't come far enough yet to help us reduce the number of solutions that interact with each other. We use Purview right next to all the other tools, which is okay. It takes a lot of time for a company to adapt to using Purview. You can scan data quite easily and figure out how to apply rules and classify and document your data, but you still need people to adapt and make use of it. I haven't really seen that last part very much in practice yet. It takes a bit of change management to get people to make use of it properly. As a result, it hasn't replaced tools yet for me.

    Purview doesn't enable you to show compliance in real-time, but you can schedule how often you scan your sources. When the sources are scanned and added to Purview, they become visible and you can see if you're compliant or not, but that's not real-time. You can schedule scans daily, for example, but then you have daily data sets rather than real-time data.

    Overall, the potential for this solution is really large. Data management is extremely important and Microsoft is investing very heavily in Purview. Right now, it's not quite there yet.

    Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
    PeerSpot user
    reviewer1946223 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Director of IT at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
    Real User
    Helped our client understand how much sensitive data they hold
    Pros and Cons
    • "One of the best features is the classification rules, especially the scan rule sets. They are really useful, especially when we need to understand the current data the company has to ensure that all the problematic data can be put under someone's responsibility."
    • "Another area for improvement is in managing the business glossary terms. If they could provide the same type of method that we use to configure the scan rule sets, that would be helpful. Currently, there is no option like this, so we have to do it manually. Automatic detection would be great."

    What is our primary use case?

    Our client was looking to do data governance and we decided to implement Microsoft Purview for them. The client did not have very specific requirements, because they had no idea what to do with data governance and they wanted someone who could kick-start things. We implemented the basic functionalities for them.

    How has it helped my organization?

    Our client was impressed because they now understand how much sensitive data they hold. They now know they have to assign someone who can work as a data steward, someone who will manage and protect the sensitive data to make sure that no one else can access it.

    It has also helped our client save time when compared with doing data governance manually. It could be up to 80 percent faster because, if we had to do it manually, it would take a lot of time to create a script to scan all of the data in the data repository. With Purview, we can configure the connectors and just hit the button and it will do the rest.

    Overall, Purview is quite good for helping you stay on top of compliance.

    What is most valuable?

    One of the best features is the classification rules, especially the scan rule sets. They are really useful, especially when we need to understand the current data the company has to ensure that all the problematic data can be put under someone's responsibility.

    Also, although it is not automatic, managing the business glossary terms is valuable. If we have to work with other people who are also data governors, it's important to understand how the current data catalog is going to work with the business. We can do it manually to flag the business terms that we would like to handle.

    It is also important that Purview delivers data protection across multi-cloud and multi-platform environments. Microsoft has built-in tools that can scan risky data that could be sensitive. It also provides connectors to other data platforms or clouds. These abilities are important for anyone who wants to see whether their organization has sensitive data, and how much.

    What needs improvement?

    In my understanding, because most of the connectors only scan databases or data lakes on multiple clouds, it is certainly not going to provide direct protection on other platforms, like iOS or macOS.

    Also, Purview has no data ingestion capability. Of course, it can scan, but it won't import any data into Purview, just metadata. That is still important but it doesn't do data ingestion.

    Another area for improvement is in managing the business glossary terms. If they could provide the same type of method that we use to configure the scan rule sets, that would be helpful. Currently, there is no option like this, so we have to do it manually. Automatic detection would be great.

    I would also like to see third-party plug-ins. For example, there are several data quality or data management options on the market. Because Purview is not a 100 percent data governance solution, it would help if we could pick some of the good capabilities of other products. If we could plug Purview into the AI option from Ataccama, it would be enhanced immeasurably.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    We implemented Microsoft Purview for a customer's company about two or three months ago.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    It's stable. There were no weird glitches.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    I think it's scalable, although Microsoft hasn't mentioned this explicitly. But it's a serverless solution, so it would scale. It just depends on how much data we need to scan.

    How are customer service and support?

    We haven't had a chance to talk with Microsoft support because we haven't encountered any problematic situations.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    Our client did not have a previous solution. They had no idea which one to go with. They just wished to have data governance and that's why we came up with Purview for them.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial deployment might seem complicated at first, but Microsoft has a guide with basic documentation on how to start and it's quite clear. Newcomers would need to understand the documentation first before they could implement this.

    For example, for the resources in Azure, it might require the subscription owner to turn on some features. And in terms of the connectors, they would require an additional resource to store the data connection credentials called Key Vault. We had to implement all the resources to work along with Microsoft Purview.

    It took about a week to get things up and running, but that was for the pilot solution. We did not have any very complex data to scan. We had to gather the information from the client about how much of the data they wished to scan, and when we got all the information, we started with the resources. 

    We had three people involved in deploying it. One was responsible for most of the Azure connections and permissions. Another was the data governance operator who decided what to scan. The third was a data curator who made sure that all data was in the correct classifications.

    It took about two weeks, after we implemented Purview, to realize the benefits of the most important features. The way that we implemented it, it was natively Microsoft-based, so there were not many other solutions to consolidate.

    Compliance is not shown in real time because it might take some time to scan, but it depends on the amount of data involved. It's going to take some time to compile everything and show compliance.

    Purview itself is on the cloud, but there is an on-premises database server that we need to connect with. Currently, there is no maintenance involved. It is done automatically.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    The pricing is moderate. It's not too expensive, but it's not the most competitive.

    In terms of additional costs, there is an option for advanced data lineage for lineage visibility with Power BI, but because our client did not have Power BI we didn't use this.

    What other advice do I have?

    Although I haven't had a chance to work with Dynamics 365, I can see that Purview could be connected to that too, and I think it is important. And as far as I know, the classification rules built-in by Microsoft only apply to EU GDPR, as well as American and Canadian sensitive data protection. For all other regions, there are no options just yet.

    If an organization wishes to do data governance that is not too advanced or sophisticated, Microsoft Purview could be the perfect fit for them, but they should, of course, do a PoC first.

    Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
    PeerSpot user
    reviewer2315058 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Innovation at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
    Real User
    Helps to prevent the loss of personal information across Microsoft 365
    Pros and Cons
    • "You can set up automated dates to alert on internal data."

      What is our primary use case?

      We use the product to prevent the loss of personal information across Microsoft 365. 

      What is most valuable?

      You can set up automated dates to alert on internal data. 

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      I don't see any issues with the product's scalability. 

      How are customer service and support?

      The tool's support is good and very responsive. The first and second lines of support need to improve. 

      What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

      Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention is not cheap. 

      What other advice do I have?

      We are heavy on the use of iOS. 

      It is nice that the product delivers data protection across multiple cloud and platform environments. Azure is our primary cloud. 

      We are happy with Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention's security and visibility. 

      I rate it a five out of ten. 

      Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
      PeerSpot user
      Real User
      Serves as a medium to provide information as reports to the stakeholders
      Pros and Cons
      • "I use the tool in projects as a medium to provide information as reports to the stakeholders."
      • "The product needs improvement to edit the number of assets. It needs to be more inuitive as well."

      What is our primary use case?

      I use the solution as a data catalog, to scan databases and report data insights. 

      How has it helped my organization?

      I use the tool in projects as a medium to provide information as reports to the stakeholders. 

      What is most valuable?

      I am impressed with the product's search and data catalog features. 

      What needs improvement?

      The product needs improvement to edit the number of assets. It needs to be more inuitive as well. 

      For how long have I used the solution?

      I have been using the product for one and a half years. 

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

      I haven't encountered any serious stability issues. 

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      The product is scalable. 

      Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

      We split the data into dedicated customer-specific internal tools. My company made the business decision of choosing the solution which helped to manage data catalog, reports and connect databases in one place. 

      How was the initial setup?

      The product's deployment was complex because it involved the connecting of different elements within the framework. I have been partly involved in the tool's deployment. I worked with the business requirements and user acceptance testing phase. I worked as a business analyst. There were the engineering team, DevOps team, and data engineers working on the project. We have a team who maintains the consistency of the data logs and data scans. 

      What other advice do I have?

      I would rate the product a seven out of ten. 

      I am a Windows user and connect the tool to the Azure platform to work on it. I have never used it on iOS and Android. I am sure that the multi-platform ability is a good feature of the product. I also find it important for the tool to be connected to data protection platforms. I think that it's a benefit to have the tool get data information from other cloud providers and platforms. It is also important that the solution was built taking into account critical regulations from all around the world. 

      In my opinion, the tool has reduced the number of tools that I need to interact with. There was a project requirement from a customer where we were supposed to use a complete platform with the Azure framework. The solution has the potential to be used as a governance tool which helps to know where the data is placed, how it flows through the system, etc. I may use the AI and automation in Purview sometime later. 

      I believe that the product speeds up compliance and Microsoft has documentation that can help with the same. The solution has helped me save time. For the tool's reporting part, we didn't need to rely on other tools and sort through manual files storing the information. 

      Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

      Hybrid Cloud
      Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
      PeerSpot user
      Buyer's Guide
      Download our free Microsoft Purview Data Governance Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
      Updated: June 2025
      Buyer's Guide
      Download our free Microsoft Purview Data Governance Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.