What are our pricing options for OMS to for Windows 10 upgrade analytics? (We have SA already)

[Leo Bounds]

We may want to take advantage of upgrade analytics through OMS for Windows 10 upgrades in our Enterprise but is there a way to do this without additional cost?

We already are a Software Assurance customer with Microsoft Enterprise licensing.

[#2]

Hi Leo,

all the data that comes into OMS through the Windows Analytics solutions is not getting metered and billed by OMS. This means you can add the Windows Analytics solutions to any OMS workspace (either one you already have or a new one) and you will not get charged. It does not matter if you use a free tier, standard tier or premium tier workspace - Windows Analytics data is always free.

[#3]

That's great news! Thanks for the information.

My only other question is what should my response be over our security teams concerns about turning on telemetry data that will go outside the organization. There's always someone in the security team that will likely object to this.

[#4]

In order to learn about the telemetry leaving the systems for Upgrade Analytics I would start here.

The more complete answer is this: Depending on your scenario, there are slightly different sets of data leaving your machines. 

1) If you want to use Upgrade Analytics to upgrade Win 7 and 8.1 machines, we document the data we send here (we refer to it as CommercialDataOptIn)

2) If you are using Upgrade Readiness for Win 10 to 10 upgrades, your machines have to be at basic telemetry level (info here). You can get some extra data (mainly usage) and use other Windows Analytics solutions by going to Enhanced Telemetry, which is documented here.

[#5]

Great information again, Thank you. I will make note of this for reference

[#6]

Agree with Marc, and adding some nuance: As far as I am aware there is only one (uncommon - requires workspace customization) scenario where you could incur OMS charges related to Windows Analytics records in your workspace. Here is the situation as I understand it today:
1) Ingestion costs: The "IsBillable=false" records such as Windows Analytics records don’t count towards ingestion costs (e.g. per node plans or per GB plans) and don’t count towards ingestion limits (e.g. free plan)
2) Storage costs: For the default retention period of a given plan (e.g., 1 month for Standalone plan https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/log-analytics/ ), the "IsBillable=false" records such as Windows Analytics data do not incur storage costs, *but* if you customize you workspace to retain data beyond the plan default, then all records (including Windows Analytics) retained beyond the plan default should be charged at the normal extended storage retention rate (e.g. $0.10/GB/month as of today). Note that in some cases this extended retention billing may not be enforced today, but should be expected to be enforced in the future.

tl;dr : Windows Analytics data is never expected to incur OMS/Log Analytics costs, except in the uncommon case of customized data retention beyond plan defaults.

[#7]

We like to start sending server data to OMS for log analytics.  What's the cost consideration of using the same workspace we already use for workstations (Windows Analytics), or a dedicate one for server data?

Will workstation activities (ingestion and storage) still free of charge when the workspace is used by server data for non-Windows Analytics solutions?

[#8]

The IsBillable==false logic described in the previous post all happens at the record level, so is independent of what other records exist in the workspace, and what charges those other records may generate.