Environments Overview

Introduction

A power Platform environment is a security,data and governance boundary - not a folder or workspace. An environment contains:

• Apps
• Flows
• Dataverse
• Security configuration
• Capacity configuration
• ALM state

When to Use This

Environment prevents the risk of unauthorized change to application or data. They support Software development lifecycle thus preventing test user accessing or modifying the live data. It also prevent the risk of development changes being visible to production users. It enforces governance and security by design to meet compliance and regulatory requirements.

Types of Environment

The different types of environment are listed below:

• Default
• Sandbox
• Production
• Developer
• Trial

Each type behaves differently in below areas:

• Data retention
• Reset capability
• ALM expectations
• Governance risk

High-Level Environment Overview

Power Platform Tenant
|
|- Default Environment
|- Dev Environment
|- Test/UAT Environment
|- Production Environment
|- Specialized Environmen

Why Default Environment is dangerous?

The Default Environment is auto created for each tenant and allows access to all the users tenant wide. This environment cannot be deleted and should be locked down and monitored. It should not be used as production environment.

Failure Pattern

Citizen builds app in Default
      |
App gains adoption
      |
Data grows
      |
No ALM, no isolation
      |
Compliance & support crisis

Dataverse Capacity Overview

Power platform capacity is allocated and enforced at tenant level and consumed at environment level. There are three types of capacity as listed below:

• Database Capacity
• File Capacity
• Log Capacity

While developer and architect generally design and optimize around Database and File Capacity, Log Capacity that includes Audit logs, Plugin traces, Flow run history are often overlooked causing it grow overtime and hit the Capacity threshold limit. Once the limit is hit, the write access is blocked causing production outage.

Platform Limits

There are certain limitation that are enforced by platform and not configurable or cannot be by passed. These limitation are inplace to keep Power Platform health green, and to prevent platform being abused.

• API request limits
• Concurrent flow runs
• Plugin execution timeouts
• Bulk operation limits
• Search index delays

Role Based Perspective

1. Admin

• Responsible for environment strategy and Capacity Monitoring
• Governs the Default environment
• Manages the environment lifecycle and environment access

2. Architect

Responsible for below key decisions regarding environment, which should be thought during design times

• Number of environment
• Isolation model(per app, per BU or per region)
• Regulated vs Non Regulated workloads
• Capacity forecasting
• Promotion Path

3. Developer

Developer should consider below items while working in Power Platform:

• Environment-specific behavior exists
• APIs behave differently under load.
• Capacity limits affect design.
• Should not hardcode environment values.
• Testing should be done in test environment with minimum required privilege.
• Avoid bulk operation in power automate.

4. User If above things are not done correctly, user will face below issue:

• App stops working
• Uploads no longer work
• System is slow today

Best Practices

• Design environment strategy first
• Seperate Dev,Test,Prod environment
• Lock down Default environment
• Monitor capacity continously
• Assign clear ownership per environment
• Avoid treating Sandbox environment as production

Common Mistakes

• One environment is enough
• Capacity is a licensing issue

Summary

Environment and Capacity are foundational architecture decisions and not operational details. If done correctly helps organization to scale and govern effectively.