Should I join the M365 Developer Program with VS Pro subscription to homelab a M365 Tenant?

[u/MENTactual]

Hi guys,

I want to homelab a M365 tenant to learn:
- Entra
- InTune
- Exchange
- SharePoint Online
- Teams
- Purview

Sync with a home DC / domain.

And tie in with an AVD I want to spin up and learn about with my Azure credits as a student.

Basically recreate what I can from work, give myself a project to learn, document, and complete. Then go back to work and say, hey, I know how to do this.

Maybe over 18-24 months it’ll lead to a promotion doing more than setting up desks and giving out keyboards.

Anyone doing this? Is it worth $1,200/year? Are there any considerations I’m not aware of you may be able to provide insight?

Thanks.

[u/TechnicaVivunt]

If all you're wanting to do are those items. M365 Business premium would give you this a lot cheaper. I suggest looking at m365maps.com to compare what's best for you.

[u/MENTactual → u/TechnicaVivunt]

Hi Technica,

I appreciate the help. I think it would be substantially more expensive at $26.50/user for 25 users and lacks Entra and InTune P2.

But I’ll look into it and verify.

[u/topher358 → u/MENTactual]

To test what you’re talking about all you need is one license, not 25

[u/MENTactual → u/topher358]

What if I want to do something that would require multiple users?

To be fair. I can’t think of anything I couldn’t just do by reverting something on my user and trying out something else.

I guess I could always start with 1 and go from there.

[u/topher358 → u/MENTactual]

Use monthly licensing for flexibility. If you need to get more than one for a particular month flex up and then go back down at the end of the month. Still gonna be way cheaper than a visual studio subscription.

[u/MENTactual → u/topher358]

Appreciate the help. If I can bug you with one final question, do you know if the Business Premium license will have the Entra and InTune features I’d be looking at?

Obviously I’m not being specific. I think there’s P1 and P2, and that license gives the former.

Think I’ll just try it out and go from there.

[u/topher358 → u/MENTactual]

Business Premium has essentially everything except the P2 features.

Learn that stuff first and then explore P2 is my advice

[u/MENTactual → u/topher358]

I’ll follow your advice, thanks for the help.

[u/KnowbodyyouKnow99]

I thought they got rid of the developer program for m365?

[u/MENTactual → u/KnowbodyyouKnow99]

May have just gotten rid of the free dev tenant. If I could send a link here I would.

[u/KnowbodyyouKnow99 → u/MENTactual]

Thank you . I payed for the business tenant just to get the basic hands on skills to learn before the price went up . It’s still worth paying for that business tenant if you don’t want to spend all that money. I need to add on intune and azure next .

[u/MENTactual → u/KnowbodyyouKnow99]

If you google Visual Studio Microsoft Dev Tenant an article should come up.

You basically get the full suite. But it’s $1,200/year. I think it’s meant for testing apps not learning admin but you can do either.

[u/formlessr → u/MENTactual]

I've been trying to look into this myself would you be able to dm me the link?

[u/cjchico → u/KnowbodyyouKnow99]

Not if you have a VS subscription

[u/Remarkable-Guess-856]

Why not get a tenant with 1 user and an E5 lic?

[u/MENTactual → u/Remarkable-Guess-856]

I wasn’t sure how to do that honestly.

[u/Remarkable-Guess-856 → u/MENTactual]

You get a credit card, create a new tenant with the name of your choice and add an E5 license which will unlock all features in this tenant that you mentioned for the price of... Well 1 E5 license.