Some Beach, Somewhere....

Well 4th of July week is upon us, and that means it's vacation time!!! I will be on some beach, somewhere for the next 7 days. I wish you all the best, and have a safe and fun 4th of July!


*note: This site not actually sponsored by Corona :-)

So on my return from the beach, I plan on picking back up with Dynamics AX 2009, and more! Be safe, have fun, and check back after next week!



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Bye-Bye Bill Gates!

Well, I would not be much of a Microsoft person, if I did not take the time today and post a good-bye to Bill Gates. His last full day with Microsoft is today, June 27th, and it's been a fun and crazy road for him I am sure.

I would recommend you check out the 'Bill Gates: Looking Back, Moving Forward' video.

So to Bill: "Best of luck, and thank you for the vision that has helped really advance the IT world and beyond." (Even though some people can't stand you, they still have to admit Microsoft has brought a lot to the technical world.)



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SoftEnigma: ARP 2.0 for Dynamics AX 2009 (Launched)

SoftEnigma, Inc. just launched their next release of ARP software for Dynamics AX 2009. You can get the offical release information from the following link:

ARP 2.0 for Dynamics AX 2009

This next release really builds on the last, with of course making a tie into workflows for Dynamics AX 2009, something very important for this new release of Dynamics AX 2009.

If your a project based manufacturing company, wanting to track cost, time, hours, expenses, along with your products, then this is for sure a must have add-on to your Dynamics AX instance.



This is also well suited for services companys that need to track and plan detailed projects, and with Dynamics AX 2009 being more connected to office, this can easily be used with office solutions as well.

If your interested in finding out about ARP 2.0, and having it installed into your instance of Dynamics AX, contact Sunrise Technologies, Inc, by clicking here. Also check back soon as I continue my post about Dynamics AX 2009.





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Business Intelligence in Dynamics AX 2009 (Part I)

When you think of Business Intelligence in Dynamics AX 2009, what comes to mind? There will actually be several ways to get data, reports, and information feeds that help build one's business intelligence from their given Dynamics AX 2009 instance. What I want to cover in this post, is what Microsoft is calling Business Intelligence in Dynamics AX 2009, talk about Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Application and working with Dynamics AX 2009, as well as using Applications like Excel for retrieving data from Dynamics AX 2009 and creating Ad Hoc Business intelligence reports and information applications.

First lets start with what Microsoft is calling Business intelligence in Dynamics AX 2009. In order to do that, let me point out the MSDN home for Business Intelligence in Dynamics AX 2009:

MSDN: Dynamics AX 2009, Business Intelligence

In looking over this, it's actually similar to Dynamics AX 4.0, in what is considered to be Business Intelligence, which revolves around OLAP cubes, creating OLAP cubes, and working with / processing OLAP cubes from Dynamics AX that can be defined and created from the Transactional Data in your Dynamics AX instance.

With that said, Microsoft has done a Lot under the covers to SQL Server 2008, specially in regard to OLAP and OLAP services, processing engine, etc. So this new benefits can now be used in Dynamics AX 2009. There is a good write up on what all is new and improved in SQL Server 2008, Analysis Services located here: Cube Squared: Migrating Analysis Services to the SQL Server 2008 Platform, Part 1 of 2

So in Dynamics AX 2009, there are improvements already in what is referred to as Business Intelligence, and for sure you should be installing Any new Dynamics AX 2009 instance on SQL Server 2008, so if you do, then you will see a lot more benefits and improvements to Analysis Services and Business Intelligence together!

Next post I will talk about Microsoft Office PerformancePoint and using that with Dynamics AX 2009 to create and define Business Intelligence Processes! Check back soon!



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Long Week...

I just wanted to let all you know... it's been one long, week for me. I have been working non-stop, and I am warn down. I plan to have at least two great post next week on Dynamics AX 2009 though!

So check back next week, and I hope you all have a wonderful relaxing weekend!



I will leave you with this, DAXGuy, over at: DAXGuy.blogspot.com, has done a nice write up on Workflows in Dynamics AX 2009. This will no doubt be wrote about a lot --- me included. Since he has already started down this path, and this was one of my listed topics, here is a direct link to his post: Dynamics AX 2009 Workflows - A Quick Overview

Thanks DAXGuy!




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Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 SDK

The Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 SDK is now online at MSDN. Use the following link to see the first versions of information for the SDK for DAX 2009:

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 SDK (v1.0)

This has some great things already, and I plan on talking about each area as we move deeper and deeper into the Dynamics AX 2009 world. Some of the upcoming post will be about the following:

• Business Intelligence


• Menus for Microsoft Dynamics AX


• Reports for Microsoft Dynamics AX


• Implementing Workflow for Microsoft Dynamics AX


• Security for Microsoft Dynamics AX


• Upgrading to a New Version of Microsoft Dynamics AX


• Integrating Other Applications with Microsoft Dynamics AX


• Enterprise Portal for Microsoft Dynamics AX

Of course these are not listed in any order, but I plan on talking about each of the listed, plus more.



Alright well check back soon, as we continue to move more and more into Dynamics AX 2009!



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Dynamics AX 2009 & SQL Server 2008

In my last post I talked about, how we are just now starting to scratch the Dynamics AX 2009 surface. And with the soon to be release SQL Server 2008 Database Product, I thought it was a perfect time to start talking about the two together.

I did some digging around, and came across some nice published information about Dynamics AX and SQL Server 2008. First off we have this recently published SQL Server 2008 Benchmark document:

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 - Benchmark Report

When looking at the above benchmark, do a search on the page for 'Dynamics AX'. Doing so will bring you to the following quoted statement:

"Record scale improvement of 70% in throughput, scalability and response time
Benchmark tests demonstrate record scale showing up to 70 percent improvement in throughput scalability and response time; maximizing performance while minimizing database growth using SQL Server 2008 database compression."

And Dynamics CRM benchmark information was just right below that:

"Record scale at 24,000 concurrent users with sub-second response rate
Benchmark tests demonstrate that record scale at 24,000 concurrent users with sub-second response rate was achieved with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0, SQL Server 2008, and Windows Server 2008 for enterprise-level workload. Learn more"

Now, lets take a look at the offical Press Release for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009: (Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009)

"- Enhanced security, reliability and scalability though integration with Microsoft SQL Server 2008. For example, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009, through Microsoft SQL Server 2008, can compress the database size by 40 percent to 60 percent, which can lead to lower hardware and data maintenance costs."

So there is for sure a benchmarked reason why clients would want to upgrade to Dynamics AX 2009 & SQL Server 2008:

- Huge increase in throughput, scalability and response time.
- Ability to use compression, out of the box, to minimize hardware cost

And this seems to be the case for Dynamics AX 2009 in general. The overall architecture has improved greatly (see my article on MSDynamicsWorld.com: Scaling of the AOS), and now we can scale up and out, and take advantage of newer technology offerings. This also means that a client would gain a lot of performance benefit for switching from SQL Server 2005 to SQL Server 2008.

Check back soon!




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Dynamics AX 2009 - Released

As the name of the post suggest, the next version of Dynamics AX, Dynamics AX 2009 (formely known as DAX 5.0) has been released. This has happened ahead of schedule than expected (and as earilier reported) which is a great thing for a software package. To be released before the targeted date.

Now this release has been covered in great detail by all sorts of web sites and blogs. Here are a few direct links for your reading pleasure:

• Microsoft's Offical Press Release Link


• Mar Jo's All About Microsoft post: Dynamics AX 2009: The ‘Halo’ for Microsoft’s app platform


• MSDynamicsWorld.com Article on Dynamics AX 2009 being released

Also, here is a link to the image gallery on Microsoft's site for seeing some of the publicly approved images for the release:
Image Gallery for Dynamics AX 2009

So with all of this great press coverage, what more can someone say about the release of Dynamics AX 2009? Honestly, a lot more! To start it off, we are just now starting this, and we have so much to go over like:

• Whats new technically for Dynamics AX 2009


• How to take advantage of the new technial features in DAX 2009


• What are some of the under the cover improvements to the solution, and what does that mean for customers


• etc. etc. etc.

We have a whole list of things that we have to start covering, as well as how different products from the rest of the newly released stack of offerings, likes SQL Server 2008, MOSS 2007, SilverLight, .Net 3.0 / 3.5, Web Parts, Web Services, Mobile Development, All how they fit into this wonderful application product that sits on top of the Microsoft Business Stack called Dynamics AX.

I believe the following was righly stated by Kees Hertogh, Director of Product Management for Dynamics AX:
“What Halo is for Xbox, we are for Microsoft’s application platform.”

With this said, I think we have a lot to be excited about in the Dynamics AX space, and I am looking forward to giving you real examples, designs, interviews, reviews all moving towards the Dynamics AX 2009 product!

If you interested in learning more, right now, about what Dynamics AX 2009 can do for you, then feel free to visit Sunrise Technologies, Inc. Web site by clicking here. Go to the contact us form, and send your questions on to the best partner in the world!



Check back soon!



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Some Highlights & Thank Yous

First let me say I hope everyone is enjoying TechEd conference. A lot of great information was blogged yesterday from TechEd. I am really excited about, espcailly Oslo, the modelling concept from Microsoft for speeding up development.

With that said, I have some highlights and thanks yous of my own to post about here. First Mary Jo Foley from Her Blog 'All About Microsoft' from ZDNet, picked up my Q&A interview with Klaus and Doug from Microsoft. This was picked up in here blog post on the release of Dynamics AX 2009:

Dynamics AX 2009: The ‘Halo’ for Microsoft’s app platform

I was picked up as being quoted on this post, and a direct link to my interview as seen at the bottom of here post:



I wanted to take the time and thank Mary Jo for not only the honor of being picked up on her blog, but also for all the hard work she does in covering Microsoft.

Next, and more related back to TechEd this week, I am currently being spotlighted on TechEd Bloggers(.net) home page. TechEd editors choose a few bloggers to spotlight, that they pick up post from, and I happened to be one of the lucky ones. So I wanted to say thank you to the TechEd editoral staff, including Kathy!

You can see my spotlight on there home page, and also I have captured in a screen shot below here:



So a lot of cool and great stuff going on this week with information, TechEd, and last but for sure not least the release of Dynamics AX 2009. I plan on doing a lot of post about DAX 2009 continued at MSDynamicsWorld.com as well as expanding on those from this blog.

Check back soon!



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