Service datasheet · Technical deep dive
D365 F&O Database Storage Capacity Assessment
Understand what your data is actually costing you, and reclaim capacity before the next overage conversation.
Storage in Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations is pooled, entitled, and billed on consumption — which means database growth is a finance problem, not just a technical one. Most environments carry years of staging records, batch history, and log data nobody has ever needed to read. This assessment establishes what you are consuming, what is driving growth, what can be removed safely, and what your position looks like twelve months out.
1–2 weeks
Fixed fee
Cost avoidance
Plan + forecast
Who this is for
Approaching your entitlement
You have been notified that consumption is nearing or exceeding entitlement and want options before simply buying more capacity.
Unexplained growth
The database is growing faster than the business is, and nobody can say which tables are responsible or why.
Growth is hurting performance
Large tables are slowing queries, batch jobs, and environment refresh cycles, and the problem compounds each quarter.
What the assessment covers
The assessment works from actual consumption data across your environments, then traces each major consumer back to the process that creates it.
Current consumption against entitlement, broken out by environment
Largest tables by size, row count, and rate of growth over time
Staging and intermediate tables left behind by data management and integration runs
Batch job history, execution logs, and framework-generated records
Document handling, attachments, and where binary content is being stored
Change tracking, audit, and logging tables accumulating without retention limits
Inventory and costing subledger volume, including closing and adjustment history
Custom tables created by extensions or ISV products, and their retention behavior
Index and duplicate-structure overhead relative to useful data
Existing cleanup and purge routines: what is scheduled, and what is silently failing
Legal and regulatory retention obligations that constrain what may be removed
Archival options and the trade-off between deletion, archive, and external offload
What you receive
Consumption baseline
A clear picture of where storage is going today, ranked by consumer, with growth rate attached to each.
Reclamation plan
Prioritized cleanup and archival actions with estimated recovery, execution risk, and the retention rule that governs each.
Twelve-month forecast
Projected consumption with and without the recommended actions, so the capacity decision can be made on numbers.
Why this is worth doing before you buy capacity
Cost avoidance first
Purchasing additional capacity is the last option, not the first. Most environments carry a meaningful share of storage that no process depends on.
Retention-aware
Recommendations are checked against your record retention obligations. Nothing is proposed for deletion without a stated basis.
Sustainable, not one-off
A one-time cleanup buys a quarter. The plan includes the scheduled routines and ownership that keep the position stable.
How the engagement runs
Scoping call
Confirm environments, entitlement position, retention obligations, and the driver.
Collection
Read-only capture of consumption, table-level sizing, and growth history.
Analysis
Consumer attribution, retention mapping, recovery estimation, and forecast modeling.
Readout
Baseline, prioritized reclamation plan, forecast, and recommended ongoing routines.
Scope boundaries
The assessment produces a plan. Executing cleanup, archival, or purge routines in your environments is a separate scope, deliberately, because deletion deserves its own approval trail.
Retention recommendations are informed by the obligations you provide. Confirming your legal and regulatory retention requirements remains your responsibility.
Microsoft entitlement terms and pricing are reported as they stand at the time of the assessment; commercial negotiation remains yours to conduct.
Frequently asked
How much storage can we realistically expect to recover?+
It varies widely with environment age and integration volume. The single most common finding is staging and log data with no retention policy, which is also the safest to remove. The assessment gives you a quantified estimate before anything is deleted.
Is deleting data risky?+
It can be, which is why the plan separates records with no downstream dependency from those requiring careful handling, and why execution is a separate engagement with its own approvals.
Does this help performance as well as cost?+
Usually. Oversized tables affect query plans, batch duration, and environment refresh times, so reclamation often shows up as a performance improvement too.
Do you need production access?+
Read-only access is ideal for accurate sizing. Where that is not available, the assessment can work from exports and a recent production copy, with the limitation noted.
What happens after the cleanup?+
The deliverable includes the ongoing retention routines, schedule, and ownership needed to hold the position, so you are not repeating this exercise every year.
Reclaim capacity before you buy it
Share your current consumption position and environment count. We will confirm scope on a short call and outline what the assessment is likely to recover.
Dexnen LLC is an independent consultancy specializing in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations. Microsoft, Dynamics 365, and related product names are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. This page describes service scope and is not a contractual offer; engagement terms are set out in the applicable Statement of Work.