This is the session MVPs Serge Luca aka Doctor Flow and Isabelle Van Campenhoudt presented at Teams nation 2022. They provide criteria for choosing between Dataverse, Dataverse for Teams, SharePoint lists, SQL Azure.

1. #TeamsNation
How to choose between
SharePoint lists,
SQL Azure, Microsoft Dataverse
Isabelle Van Campenhoudt| MVP, Power Platform Associates - Brussels
Sponsored by
Microsoft Teams Microsoft Tech Community
Serge Luca, aka “Dr Flow” | MVP, Power Platform Associates - Brussels

2. Doctor Flow aka “Serge Luca”
Business Application MVP, Brussels
MVP 15th year
Business Apps, Office 365 Solution architect
Creator of the open-source Power Platform BPM Toolkit
Author of “Power Automate in a day”
Blog: sergeluca.wordpress.com
sergeluca@shareql.com
Twitter: @sergeluca

3. Isabelle Van Campenhoudt
Data Platform MVP, Brussels
Consultant, Speaker Trainer, Community Leader
SQL server since 1999
SharePoint BI & Power BI since it starts
Blog: theSQLGrrrl.wordpress.com
ivc@shareql.com
Twitter: @theSQLgrrrl
SQL
BI
Tuning
Architecture
Coffee making

4. Agenda
Power Platform overview
What you really need to know about Dataverse
Dataverse versus SQL, SharePoint [Go-NoGo Features]
Dataverse [Cherry on the cake features]
Conclusions

5. Power Platform
Overview

6. Overview of the Power Platform

7. In our Power Platform+ governance check list :

8. Connectors
• More than 480 connectors
• Connectors to
• Dataverse
• SQL server (cloud and on premises)
• SharePoint (cloud and on premises)

9. Where to start
Advice : if you have existing data
somewhere, keep it where it is
• There are connectors
• On premises : use the on-
premises data gateway
The question is : what should I
chose if I start from scratch ?

10. Go–No Go features
Storage​ Performance​ Real time​
Api calls/
connection​
RPO/RTO​
Price​
Document
storage &
management​
Transaction​s Silos
Power Apps
Portal​
Model driven
apps​
Complex
relational
model​
AI Builder​
Security Field
level security​
Security : record
sharing​/row
level security

11. What your really
need to know about
Dataverse

12. Microsoft Dataverse – what´s in the box?
API

13. It is much more than a database
• Storage
• Application Server
• Back-end of Dynamics 365
2 configurations
• Dataverse
Not free
• Dataverse for Teams
"Free" with Microsoft 365
Limitations

14. Dataverse
Compute Storage
oData
web api
Dataverse. . . Runs on Azure

15. Dataverse
Compute Eventing + Extensibility
Storage
Dataverse. . . Extends with Azure

16. Dataverse for Teams

17. How can we use Dataverse
Create an
environment
Create a table
Secure the table
(who can do what)
Call the oData Web
api Directly or
indirectly
(connectors)

18. Call the Dataverse oData Web api directly

19. Call Dataverse by using the Dataverse connector

20. 1 table in Dataverse = 1 table in Azure SQL

21. FetchXML = the SQL language of Dataverse
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/developer/data-
platform/use-fetchxml-left-outer-join-query-records-not-in

22. Generate FetchXML
FetchXML
Builder
SQL4CDS
XrmToolBox

24. Go-No Go comparison
criterias

25. Price : you get what you pay for
Each end user interacting with DV Or SQL must have a premium license
Power Apps Per app license: 1 app 1000 employees x4,20€/month x 12 months =
50.400 €/Year
Power Apps Per user license: Unlimited apps 1000 employees x16,20€/month x 12
months = 194.400 €/year
Pay as you go : 8,20€/month/employee/used application in the month
Azure SQL SharePoint Dataverse Dataverse for Teams
Each end user must
pay:
Premium + Storage M365 License Premium M365 License

26. Dataverse storage price
Dataverse storage
• Database
• Logs
• Files
Premium Licences give storage
• Power Apps per user: 10 GB Db, 20 GB Files, 2 GB logs
Buy add-ons to have more storage
• 2 GB
• 1 millions rows

27. Saas/Paas
Azure SQL SharePoint Dataverse Dataverse for Teams
PaaS SaaS SaaS​ SaaS​
PaaS
• Empty house
• Only water,
electricity and Gaz
• From detached
house to condo
• Bring your furnitures
• Dba and Developers
Saas
• House with furnitures and appliances (AIRBNB)
• You need to cook
• No staff needed, just pay for storage
• Citizen Developers or Pro Developers

28. Storage capacity
Azure SQL
• SQL​
• 16TB
SharePoint
• meta model
on top of SQL
& Azure Blob
storage​
• “unlimited”​
(30 M/List)
Dataverse
• SQL, Cosmos
DB, Azure
Blob Storage​
• 4TB
Dataverse for
Teams
• SQL, Cosmos
DB, Azure
Blob Storage​
• 1 M rows, 2
GB​

29. Business continuity
Azure SQL SharePoint Dataverse Dataverse for Teams
SLA:99,99%
RPO 5-10 min
RTO <12h
PITR 1-365
geo replication and
LTR 10 years
SLA:99,9% SLA
Backups every 12
hours
Records retention : 90
days retention (Recycle
Bin)
SLA :99,9%
RPO :5-10 min
Backups expires after 7
days
SLA :99,9%
RPO :5-10 min
Backups expires after 7
days
Third party tools can be purchased to extend the backup retention period (Dataverse and
SP)
SLA= Service Level Agrement
RTO = Recovery Time Objective
RPO = Recovery Point Objective
LTR = Long Term Retention
PITR =Point in Time Restore
99,9% = 8h45 downtime a year
99,99% = 58 minutes a year

30. Performance & throttling
Azure SQL SharePoint Dataverse Dataverse for Teams
Performance​ Very high​ Average​ Very high​ Very high​
Api calls/connection​ 3000/60 sec 600/60 sec​ 1200/60 sec 1200/60 sec

31. Extensibility
Azure SQL SharePoint Dataverse Dataverse for Teams
Extensibility
Trigger, Stored proc,
Power Automate
Power Automate
SharePoint Framework
Workflows, plugins,
rollups, Power
Automate, jobs​
Power Automate,
Power Fx in the DB​

32. DEMO

33. Extensibility in Dataverse : Rollup fields

34. Extensibility in Dataverse : Power Automate

35. Extensibility in Dataverse & Dataverse for
Teams
Power Fx Formulas in the Database

36. Security
Azure SQL SharePoint Dataverse
Dataverse for
Teams
Role Based
Security
***** **** ****** ***
Record Sharing Yes Yes Yes No
Field Level
Security
Yes No Yes No
Hierarchy No No Yes No

37. Security roles in Dataverse
• When a record is created, defines who can
• Create
• Read
• Modify (Write)
• Own (Assign)
• Share with someone else

38. HR
(Manager)
Sales
Org (Power Platform
Associates)
HR Belgium HR China
User 2 User 3
User 1

39. Hierarchical security : based on hierarchy

40. Hierarchical security : based on position

41. Dataverse for Teams Security

42. Transactions
Azure SQL SharePoint Dataverse Dataverse for Teams
Transactions Yes No Yes Yes

43. Transactions

44. Applications that require Dataverse
Power Apps
Portal
Model Driven
Apps
AI Builder
Dataverse (not DV4T!)

45. Applications requiring Dataverse
Azure SQL SharePoint
Power Apps Portal Via Power Automate Via Power Automate
Model Driven Apps Via Power Automate Via Power Automate
AI Builder No No

46. Cherry on the cake

47. Dataflow integration
Azure Data
Lake
Synapse
Any
data
source
Any
data
source
Power BI
Dataverse
Dataflow:
Copy
Combine
Transform
Refresh
(Power Query
Online)

48. Dataflow integration
Dataverse connectors
Dataverse for Teams connectors

49. Off-line support
Azure SQL SharePoint Dataverse Dataverse for Teams
Off-line
To be implemented in
client app
To be implemented in
client app
Out of the box No

50. Dataverse relevance search
Tables can be indexed + crawled and be searched
The internal engine is Azure Cognitive Search
Documents in tables can be indexed too
The (Apache) Lucerne query syntax can be used
• Fuzzy search, proximity search,…
• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/search/query-lucene-
syntax

51. Auditing -> Compliance
Auditing at the environment level
Auditing at the table level
Auditing at the field level

52. Activity logging

53. Conclusions

54. Conclusions
Keep your data where it is
You cannot be wrong by using SQL Azure
In most cases, Dataverse is a great SaaS solution
It gives you many Dynamics 365 features
You can combine:
You can upgrade from DV4T to DV
SQL/SharePoint/Dataverse
Dataverse for Teams and SharePoint
Dataverse is not a toy

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