Optimising the Dynamics AX Infrastructure Platform for Performance and Availability

Businesses are under increasing pressure to respond rapidly to change and exploit new opportunities. To do this, a flexible and dynamic underlying IT infrastructure is crucial.

Microsoft Dynamics AX is adaptable, integrated and cost-effective; built to work with the latest Microsoft applications (Microsoft Office and Microsoft SharePoint), as well as the Microsoft Application Platform and IT Infrastructure products (Microsoft SQL Server). With increased efficiency, reduced IT costs, and superior security and connectivity, Dynamics AX assists a quicker adaption to change and better management of assets and resources, leading to better performance.

How can Dynamics AX features improve performance and availability?

• Monitor and analyse business performance using Performance Point Server: As a component of SharePoint, Performance Point monitors and analyses business performance in the form of Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) and dashboards.
• Increase productivity using Microsoft Office/SharePoint:  By using these familiar applications, employees are empowered to work productively and make informed decision, which in turn enhance performance.
• Visualise data for clarity and insight with Excel and PowerPivot : With a click of a button, an organisation can easily export data to Excel for further manipulation; through the use of data cubes (exhibited as key performance indicators (KPIs) with drill-down capabilities in role centres for in-depth knowledge.
• Extend accessibility with Office web applications: Enables you to access information from anywhere using a PC, phone or browser. This increases the availability of information, data manipulation and better decision making and performance.
• Dynamics AX can be configured with SQL Server AlwaysOn Availability groups:
  • Always On Failover Cluster Instances (FCI) provides higher availability of SQL Server instance after failover, through multisite failover clustering; improving site protection and the ability to define flexible failover policy to better control instance failover.
  • Always On Availability Groups (AG):  users will be able to failover multiple databases in groups instead of individually (cross-cluster migration), increasing availability and recovery time. SQL Server 2012 provides everything you need to address availability and reliability of data at every level of the enterprise.

The need to optimise the Dynamics Infrastructure Platform:
Dynamics AX is the leading Microsoft Dynamics enterprise system providing a broad range of components and great depth in functionality. However, optimisation is important in identifying the constantly changing needs of your business, as well as the persistent need for innovation, speed and agility; while also keeping your Microsoft Dynamics system aligned with these processes.

• The supporting technology requires scaling to support increasing transaction volumes and it is essential that you maintain the solution within a highly available and secure environment.
• Virtualisation can radically expand the efficiency and availability of your IT systems. On average, servers are only 20-25% utilised. Having excess to physical servers results in excess management time, more hardware to fail, more rack space, more risk and more capital cost.
• Performance tuning and optimisation is a continuous balancing act between design decisions and resource availability in terms of the constantly changing environments of business.

After initially deploying Microsoft Dynamics AX, it is important to optimise the overall solution to accommodate the unique business and environmental factors inherent in a specific scenario. After the system is configured for optimal performance, be sure to establish a performance baseline by recording the optimized levels of performance.

How Codec-dss can help you:
Codec-dss consultants have an in-depth knowledge of the Microsoft technologies upon which Dynamics AX is dependent, such as SQL Server and SharePoint Server; and how these technologies support and interact with Dynamics AX. Our certified technicians can configure and optimise your IT equipment efficiently and effectively.

The deployment architecture that is appropriate for the implementation of Microsoft Dynamics AX depends on a variety of criteria, including the specific business needs that the solution is designed to address. Codec-dss consultants work with customers to ensure business needs are met; delivering a positive end user experience, with the ability to respond to business needs quickly, and ensure efficient data centre operations; optimising the level of performance and availability of the application.

Our range of tailored solutions around Dynamics AX will enable your organisations to have a solution that enables your organisation to operate at an optimum level throughout its life cycle.