Microsoft offers a pre-purchase plan for Microsoft Sentinel. This plan is similar to a Reserved Instance model. Organizations can pre-purchase Commitment Units (CUs), which are used over the life of the plan to cover the costs of the Microsoft Sentinel analytics tier. The CUs are automatically applied to qualifying costs, without requiring manual workspace assignment. The plan has a one-year term and can be automatically renewed if configured. Other Azure costs, such as retention, restore, search, or Azure Monitor tiers, are not covered by this plan.

Conditions for purchase

There are specific requirements for purchasing a pre-purchase plan, depending on the subscription type:

  • Azure subscription: the role of owner or reservation purchaser is required.
  • Enterprise Agreement (EA) subscription: The Reserved Instances policy must be active and the user must be an EA administrator.
  • Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) subscription: Follow the guidelines for purchasing reservations on behalf of a customer or by the customer themselves.

Note: Microsoft Sentinel Commit Units are not interchangeable with Security Compute Units in Security Copilot. Costs for other billable Sentinel features, such as data lake, are not included in pre-purchase plans or commitment tiers.

Determining the required number of CUs

Organizations can estimate the expected usage of the analytics tier to determine the required CUs. Pre-purchase plans work in conjunction with Microsoft Sentinel commitment tiers. Each plan has a one-year term.

Purchase and management

Pre-purchase plans can be purchased through the Azure Portal under ReservationsWhen purchasing, the scope is set, for example:

  • Resource group
  • Subscription
  • Shared reach in billing context
  • Management group

After purchase, certain settings can be adjusted, such as who can view or manage the reservation. It's not possible to cancel, exchange, or merge plans.

Pre-purchase CUs are automatically applied to qualifying analytics tier costs. Other Azure services are excluded.

Want to learn more? Contact our specialists at BeSharp Experts.

Source: Optimize costs with a pre-purchased subscription – Microsoft Sentinel | Microsoft Learn