Today's topic is Power Platform Developer Plan & Environments.
What is Developer Plan?
If anyone doesn't already have a Power Platform subscription, the simplest way to get access to a Power Platform environment is to sign up for the Power Apps Developer plan. You can explore Power Platform at full potential for learning at no cost.
This Plan gives a free development environment to build and test with Power Apps, Power Automate, and Microsoft Dataverse. The Developer plan enables you to:
- Create apps and flows without writing code, with full-featured Power Apps and Power Automate development tools.
- Connect to any data source by using Power Platform connectors.
- Use a fully managed, scalable data platform with Dataverse, including support for common business application actions. Use out-of-the-box common tables or build your own data schema.
- Export the solutions you create in your developer environment.
Who can sign up for the Power Apps Developer Plan?
Anyone with a work or school email address backed by Microsoft Entra ID can sign up for the Power Apps Developer Plan.
Manage Developer environments
After you have a developer plan license assigned to your user, you can create Developer environments in your Microsoft Entra ID tenant.
- Doesn't require a paid license.
- Permits you to explore Power Platform capabilities.
- Includes Microsoft Dataverse.
- Doesn't consume the tenant's capacity.
- Has a maximum Database size of 2 Gb.
- Can be a managed environment.
- Must not be used for production purposes.
Each user can have up to three Developer environments.
Note: A Power Platform admin can create Developer environments for other users and can restrict users from creating their own Developer environments.
Change the Type of Environment
When you configure or edit an environment, you can change the environment from:
- Production to Sandbox.
- Sandbox to Production.
- Trial to Production
But cannot convert Developer to Production
Types of environment and purpose
- Trial(Subscription based)
- Trial
- Developer
- Production
- Sandbox
Trial(Subscription based) & Trial(Standard) Environment
- Designed for individual users or small teams: Allows quick exploration and basic testing of Power Apps, Power Automate, and Dataverse for 30 days.
- Free to use: No additional licensing costs involved.
- Limited features and resources: Has 5 GB of Dataverse storage and allows sharing with up to 20 users.
- Not suitable for production use: Primarily meant for learning and experimenting, not deploying solutions in production.
- Explore Power Platform capabilities: Get hands-on experience with building small apps, flows, and understanding Dataverse.
- Test basic scenarios: Evaluate if Power Platform can address specific needs before investing in paid options.
- Share with colleagues: Collaborate on learning and exploring the platform within a small team.
2. Trial (Subscription-based):
- Designed for organizations evaluating Power Platform: Offers a comprehensive evaluation experience for 30 days.
- Admin-managed subscription: Requires an admin to set up and grant access.
- Increased features and resources: Includes 25 GB of Dataverse storage and supports up to 25 users.
- Closer to production experience: Provides a realistic simulation of deploying and managing apps in a production environment.
- Conduct thorough proof-of-concept (POC) projects: Validate the platform's suitability for specific solutions within your organization.
- Evaluate capabilities for multiple users: Assess usability and performance with a larger user base.
- Simulate production setup and management: Gain understanding of managing environments, security, and governance.
- Both trials have a 30-day limit and data is deleted after.
- They are not intended for ongoing development or production use.
- Consider which type of trial aligns best with your evaluation needs and user base.
Developer Environment
The Power Platform Developer environment offers a sandbox specifically designed for individual developers to build, test, and experiment with Power Apps, Power Automate, and Dataverse, without requiring a paid subscription. Its purpose revolves around two key areas:
1. Individual Development and Learning:
- Free access: Individual developers meeting eligibility criteria can use this environment for free, making it accessible for learning and personal projects.
- Full-featured: Provides access to all core Power Platform capabilities, including Power Apps, Power Automate, Dataverse, and premium connectors.
- Limited data storage: Comes with 1 GB of Dataverse storage, suitable for testing and exploring ideas.
- Collaborative development (limited): Share the environment with up to 20 other users for collaborative learning and development.
- Advanced tools: Experiment with solution import/export, custom connectors, and global variables for complex scenarios.
2. Development for Small-Scale Projects:
- Personal apps and automation: Build apps and workflows for personal use or small-scale projects.
- Proof-of-concept (POC) development: Experiment with ideas and test feasibility before investing in paid environments.
- Prototype creation: Develop functional prototypes to share with stakeholders and gather feedback.
Benefits of using a Developer environment:
- Reduced costs: Individual developers can build and explore without incurring licensing fees.
- Learning platform: Discover Power Platform's capabilities through hands-on practice.
- Personal project development: Create apps and solutions for personal needs or hobbies.
- POC creation: Validate ideas and build prototypes before moving to paid environments.
- Storage limitations: 1 GB data storage might not be suitable for large-scale projects.
- Limited user sharing: Collaboration is limited to 20 users.
- Not meant for production: Not designed for deploying business-critical applications.
- Trial (Subscription-based) environment: Offers 30-day trial with increased storage and users, ideal for organizations and larger projects.
- Paid subscriptions: Provide various plans with higher storage, users, and production-ready features for different organizational needs.
Production Environment
The Power Platform Production environment serves as the heart of deploying and managing mission-critical apps, flows, and solutions within your organization. Its purpose revolves around delivering a secure, reliable, and scalable platform to support your business processes and user needs.
Key characteristics of a Production environment:
- Robust security: Employs comprehensive security measures, including data encryption, access controls, and compliance certifications to protect sensitive data.
- High availability: Ensures uptime and performance through load balancing and disaster recovery mechanisms.
- Scalability: Adapts to growing user demands and data volumes seamlessly.
- Governance and management: Provides advanced tools for managing environments, monitoring usage, and enforcing governance policies.
- Integration with Azure: Leverages Azure services for enhanced functionalities and data insights.
Purposes of a Production environment:
- Deploying business-critical solutions: Host and run apps, flows, and custom connectors vital for your organization's daily operations.
- Managing large-scale projects: Handle projects with high user bases and data volumes requiring robust performance and scalability.
- Ensuring data security and compliance: Securely store sensitive data and comply with regulatory requirements.
- Centralized governance and control: Implement consistent governance policies and access controls across all production resources.
Things to consider when using a Production environment:
- Costs: Requires a paid subscription based on specific needs, including user licenses, storage, and additional features.
- Expertise and management: Requires technical expertise for setup, ongoing management, and security maintenance.
- Deployment planning: Careful planning and testing are crucial before deploying solutions to the Production environment.
Sandbox Environment
The Power Platform "Sandbox" environment serves as a non-production testing ground for exploring, developing, and testing apps, flows, and custom connectors without impacting your organization's critical data or deployments. Its purpose revolves around two key areas:
1. Safe Experimentation and Development:
- Isolated from production: Ensures changes and experiments within the sandbox environment don't affect your live applications or data.
- Full access to Power Platform tools: Provides access to all core functionalities of Power Apps, Power Automate, and Dataverse for building and testing solutions.
- Limited resources: Comes with restricted storage and user capacity compared to production environments.
- Collaboration-friendly: Share the environment with other users to work together on development and testing.
2. Risk-Free Learning and Training:
- Practice and learn: Ideal for new users to hone their skills and practice building solutions without real-world consequences.
- Test and iterate: Experiment with different approaches and refine your solutions before deploying them to production.
- Develop and test prototypes: Validate ideas and gather feedback on prototypes before investing resources in full development.
Benefits of using a Sandbox environment:
- Safe experimentation: Protects production data and minimizes risk of unforeseen issues.
- Collaborative development: Enables teamwork and knowledge sharing amongst developers.
- Cost-effective testing: Reduces costs associated with deploying untested solutions to production.
- Learning and training platform: Provides a safe space for new users to learn and experiment.
- Limited resources might not be suitable for large-scale projects.
- Data created in the sandbox is not persisted after deletion or environment expiration.
- Not intended for deploying and running production applications.
Comparison Table
*After the 30-day trial period ends, the environment will automatically deactivate unless you convert it to a paid subscription.
Will update this article with any further changes as in when comes.
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Microsoft Power Platform Engineer
4 个月Sooo helpful, Sunil! Would you be able to give the URL of the graph you included? Would like to keep abreast of any changes as this is updated. Thanks you!
Microsoft MVP, Power Platform Architect, AI Ambassador, Author, Coach and Leadership Hacker
5 个月Sunil Kumar great article, do you have any idea if the Dynamics 365 solutions and be installed here?