Coverage of AXUG Software Architect SIG at Convergence 2010

One of the sessions that I was lucky enough to attend at this years Convergence was the AXUG Software Architects SIG (Special Interest Group) for Dynamics AX.

This was a very, very interesting session that spanned a lot of different topics. This session was headed by John Smith and Jason Thorpe. Both AXUG members that are actively involved with helping promote and foster the AX community.

This was not a typical session in which you had a single speaker or two driving the whole time, but more of a round table session. Jason and John help keep the session going, and help start it, however allowed plenty of driving by the many people that attended this.

This SIG's focus is about AX Architecture, development, and being able to allow fellow Architects to share and build upon past exp. and current facing needs to help one another.

Some of the top topics discussed in this SIG were.:

• Change Management / Version Control. (A topic I have wrote about recently.: Using the Version Control Integration with Microsoft Team Foundation Server and Integrating Third party VCS with Dynamics AX 2009)


• Code Promotion


• AX Upgrades: Time for upgrades, estimating upgrade length, Functional Testing scripts and tools


• Agile development methodology, including project estimation


• Optimizing AX, SQL Server Performance, DMV's, IDM, use of SAX XML Processor vs. MSXML (XMLDOM)


• AIF, Integrations with AX, .Net BC vs. AIF - where and when

These were some of the hot and major topics covered in this session. There was some great points, and interesting things that customers were facing, and it seemed more than just one customer was facing some similar questions, and answering these questions in similar fashions.

It does seem to be that, from the techical Architect's side, either large or small companies, that similar trends and needs, along with upgrades, performance, change management with version control, integration seem to be the highest of priority.

With this post, I would like to kick off a series that covers these topics. To help dig deeper into these subjects, talk about what is being done now, what can be done, and what in AX 6 and beyond will help with these areas.

Check back soon, and feel free to leave comments, questions, and your own thoughts into this. If you were at the session, I would love to hear from you as well.

I would also like to thank Jason and John for thier time in hosting this SIG session. It was well worth the effort, and time attending this event.

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