Proof of Concept for existing DPS subscriptions
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A Proof of Concept (POC) is a limited trial that lets existing Dynatrace customers use specific features, such as a new capability, with their real-life data. During the POC period, usage of the feature is free within an agreed-upon budget.
If you're interested in starting a POC for a specific DPS feature, contact your local sales representative, account executive, or solution engineer.
Prerequisites
- You already have an active DPS subscription.
- You want to run a POC on your production environment. POCs are not available for trial environments.
- The capability that you want to trial is already available on your rate card. Your rate card is visible at Subscription > Pricing.
- To view POC costs and usage, you need access to the Subscription history page in Account Management.
About
A Proof of Concept is run on top of an existing DPS subscription. It includes the specific subset of features that you're trialing. All usage and costs is booked against the POC, and is free of charge during the free credit period.
During a POC, you can use the specific features as if they are part of your normal DPS subscription.
View usage details
All consumption and costs related to POCs are available on the Subscription history page.
Plan for POC-to-production transitions
POC consumption often misleads planning. A single, lightly configured environment with minimal retention and everything enabled for exploration is not representative of your production footprint. Before you treat your POC forecast as a baseline, account for these factors:
| Factor | Typical in POC | Typical in production | Planning adjustment |
|---|---|---|---|
Environments | 1 | 3+ (dev, staging, prod) | Multiply by number of environments |
Host / pod scale | Small sample | Full fleet | Scale up proportionally |
Retention settings | Default (short) | Compliance-driven (longer) | Add Retain costs for each capability |
Features enabled | Everything on for trials | Right-sized per environment | Often lower per unit than POC suggests |
Cost allocation | Not configured | Tags applied | No cost impact, but needed for showback |
Transition checklist:
- Review your POC consumption in Account Management > Subscription > Overview.
- Identify scale differences — how many more hosts, pods, or environments will production add?
- Adjust for any additional environments (dev, staging each consume separately).
- Factor in longer retention periods if production compliance requirements differ from POC defaults.
- Document your assumptions explicitly — they're the baseline for your first production forecast review.
For a per-host cost estimate based on your existing fleet, use the DQL approach in Forecast costs for new resources.
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