[German]A small note to administrators and developers who are responsible for the use of Microsoft Teams and use a data export via Microsoft Graph from Microsoft Teams. You have noticed that this export will be charged in the future? Whether this will turn into a costly locking, I cannot judge. Here is some information I came across by accident.
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Microsoft Graph Gateway Microsoft 365
Microsoft Graph is a Microsoft API developer platform that connects multiple services and devices. Originally, the API was released in November 2015 as the Office 365 Unified API. Then, Microsoft Graph built on top of Microsoft 365 APIs, allowing developers to integrate their services with Microsoft products such as Windows, Microsoft 365 and Azure. Since the 2017 Build conference, Redmond has been looking to use Microsoft Graph to create new features and connectivity between Windows and other operating system platforms, including Android and iOS.
Microsoft has published an information page about the product here, where it states: Microsoft Graph is the gateway to data and intelligence in Microsoft 365. It provides a unified programmability model that you can use to access the tremendous amount of data in Microsoft 365, Windows, and Enterprise Mobility + Security. Use the wealth of data in Microsoft Graph to build apps for organizations and consumers that interact with millions of users.
Upcoming billing changes
Yesterday I stumbled upon a Facebook post (see screenshot below) from German MVP Frank Carius, who pointed out within his German blog, that Microsoft recently (June 2022) changed its license terms and that the export via Graph will be charged in future.
The text within the screenshot says: #MSXFAQ Graph and costs https://msxfaq.de/cloud/graph/graph_kosten.htm – Data export via #MIcrosoftGraph from Teams will cost extra in the future. (Consumption) and you have to register your app. I hope this is not coming for all "ExportAPIs". Makes migrations expensive (Vendor Lock-In?)
The basis is the Microsoft blog post Upcoming billing changes for Microsoft Graph APIs for Teams messages, in which Microsoft notes that starting July 5, 2022, billing events for these APIs will be generally available and the notified consumption rates will go into effect. These will be billed via an Azure subscription on the Azure tenant where the application requesting access is registered.
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Specifically, this means Microsoft will require a license and apps that use the API to export will need to be registered. The document Licensing Licensing and payment requirements for Microsoft Teams APIs in Microsoft Graph (updated 3/22/2022) then lists the costs and requirements. There it's mentioned, that some APIs offer the possibility to select a licensing and payment model via the query parameter model. For both models A and B, the number of free graph exports (e.g. 800 pieces) are then listed. The price for usage beyond the free volume is listed as $0.00075 per message.
No idea what that comes out to at the end of the day for a use case. In any case, Frank Carius gives some thoughts in his German article and provides an assessment on his part. His guess is, that Microsoft starts to monitor the use of Graph and will be strengthens the limits for free exports in future. His fear is, that more and more APIs may be set to be billed for use and wrote, that it's then a kind of vendor locking, that made it costly to switch to competitor. Anyone who is active in this area should definitely read Microsoft's documents – or is all this already well known? What are your thoughts about that?
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