Freaky Tech Friday - Attack of the Resource Vampires

Welcome back Ghouls & Ghost, for this year's Shock-tober final fray into Freaky Tech Friday's! For those are still with us, you are the lucky souls who have traveled along the dark and twisted path. I end this years haunting season with a tale that strikes at the heart of many Microsoft Dynamics AX implementations. What I speak too is Attack of the Resource Vampires!



These resource sucking entities creep into existence, sometimes slowly, and sometimes right away in an instance of AX. They start with a focus around performance degrading as more and more processes are spun up for a customer. Those unknowing, slowly loose their ability to respond fast to process needs. Reports start to creep with on-set of early aging - as it would appear at least.

The major attack for these creepy creatures is typically a customers Microsoft SQL Server Database. This is the heart of performance, and like any good vampire, resource vampires always go for the heart. It's where the life blood flows...



Fear not though, young AX travelers as there is remedy for this lifeless state one might find their instance of AX in. There is hope for battling back the waves and waves of complaints from end users, as the processes & reports they so dearly need, dwindle into performance nightmares.

In order to fight back the unholy horde of resource sucking vampires, one must be armed with the right knowledge and correct tools. The sacred text tells us that the focus must first be on your SQL Server for getting the most out of your AX Investment from a performance perspective. There is a guide to this, once that applies to AX 2009 as well as AX 2012. You may find access to this guide, to the first step into performance enlightenment here.: Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 White Paper: Planning Database Configuration. Keep in mind this applies, the same level of needs, no matter virtual or physical.

The idea is to attack the resource vampires foothold, with correct TempDB file settings, having create Disk I/O for Transaction Log commits, and enough RAM to load your entire DB - if possible. Further and beyond that is a focus on indexes. After having your SQL Server set in order, ready to fight, the next level the resource vampires move into is the indexes. They latch onto queries that execute and cause either full table scans or Clustered Index Scans. Both are costly and both can be addressed with equal levels of success. The focus here is around having the concept of "coverage indexes", that is an index that covers the where clause of your queries for the business logic and reports that execute them.

After this the resource vampires start to feel the pressure as your performance story starts to take a turn for the better, instead of one for the worse. Here is where those ugly resource sucking creatures dig in, and latch themselves onto poorly wrote code. We all have sinned in such ways, creating nested while selects that make multiple trips to the database.

The way out from this painful plight is to endure an analysis of the processes being reported as slow, and trace through the code that represents said processes. Find the resource vampires hiding in those nested while selects, or where clauses that have no coverage index. Then address them head on! Take them out, by changing the nested while selects to more complex joins, that reduce the result set being sent from the SQL Server to the end user.

There are other area's that one can look to totally eradicate the evil entities, but the above should be the majority focus for gaining ground and taking control of your instance of AX. Beyond the Server, Database, Indexes and code - sometimes the process has to be reconsidered for desired speed.

Well Ghouls & Ghost, take this warning about resource vampires to heart, and arm yourself's with the knowledge found above to fight back! Further you can download from InformationSource the IDMF tool, that helps with the on-going fight of battling these monters. Further a final warning on this, always stay vigilent in your efforts as performance tuning is a dynamic, on-going process. Let it slip, and before long your knee deep back into resource sucking vampires everywhere you turn!

I hop you have enjoyed this season's gruesome tales of Freaky Tech Friday's! I will leave you with what I looked like after have falling, and becoming a conference zombie. Be warned, the following picture shows the shadow of the man I once was, just before departing for Seattle.




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Intelligent Data Management Framework in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 - Courseware

Good morning everyone! I wanted to take the time and do a small, quick highlight post about recent courseware that was released on PartnerSource. You will need PartnerSource Access with a Training plan in order to be able to access this courseware.

What I'm speaking about is.: Course 80425 - Intelligent Data Management Framework in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012

From the description of the courseware.:
" This training provides a thorough look at Intelligent Data Management Framework for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012. The topics covered in the training include installation, configuration, scheduling management and troubleshooting.

Audience This training is intended for database and system administrators, who are responsible for the administration and maintenance of the Microsoft Dynamics AX application and the Microsoft SQL Server database."



You can find out more around the IDMF offering from this following highlight post I did some time back.: Spotlight: Dive into IDMF for AX 2012

That's all for this morning! I hope you enjoy this new courseware, and helps add to your learning - and driving overall value for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 customers! Till Next Time!
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Spotlight: Dive into IDMF for AX 2012

From time to time I like to spotlight some great content that is being posted out there in the big wild social media landscape that is the Dynamics Ecosystem.

Today I thought I would spotlight, AXWonders.blogspot.com. This blog is ran by a fellow Sunriser, Eduardo Arias. He is a Senior Technical Architect like myself, and has a passion for AX. I recommend you bookmark, and subscribe to his blog feeds.

What I wanted to specifically spotlight was his recent dive in IDMF for AX 2012. I've talked a good bit about the value this has in the past, specifically around AX 2009 and the fact that this was being updated for AX 2012. Well last week the news came out that it has been release, which you can find more about this on InformationSource.



From the post: "There has been a lot of talk about the Intelligent Data Management Framework (IDMF) in AX 2012, and for a good reason! This is because the Intelligent Data Management Framework allows the system administrators optimize the performance of Microsoft Dynamics AX installations, which is something that we all should be concerned about when implementing AX 2012."

I wanted to make sure and tell Eduardo Arias thanks for sharing with the rest of us, and giving us some highlights from the recent release of IDMF for AX 2012! Keep it up!

That's all for now, but check back soon as more to come!

Till next time!

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Intelligent Data Management Framework For Microsoft Dynamics AX

Last week, during all the sessions, a nice little update took place for the IDMF, or Intelligent Data Management Framework, for Microsoft Dynamics AX.

First off, a direct link (PartnerSource or CustomerSource Access Required), to the IDMF download area can be found here.: Intelligent Data Management Framework Download.

Now, let me say this.: Every Customer and Partner, with an AX instance from 3.0, 4.0 and 2009 should be downloading this and looking at it.

If you don't have a good partner, contact me and I can hook you up with a partner that understands the value this brings.

From the IDMF page.:
"The Intelligent Data Management Framework for Microsoft Dynamics® AX helps administrators optimize Dynamics AX database layout by providing functionality to manage key database layout techniques, by way of intuitive Archiving and Purging capabilities.

The framework provides the platform for reduction in database size by purging and archiving of transactions records from sets of relating entities, while maintaining the consistency and integrity of production data. The Intelligent Data Management Framework provides customers and partners the ability to identify and discover related entities based on the Microsoft Dynamics AX metadata and to determine the purging or archiving criteria for tables.

The Intelligent Data Management Framework also analyzes the Production database to determine usage patterns and assesses the health of the Microsoft Dynamics AX Application. This Framework is compatible with all supported versions of Dynamics AX. The Intelligent Datat Management Framework for Microsoft Dynamics AX is a benefit of staying enrolled in a Business Ready Enhancement plan."

This is meant to be a tool, that resides along side Dynamics AX, to offer a company the ability to archive inactive data, and also remove marked obsolete data. This can happen by Fiscal Year, and done via the options and Dashboard within the client of the IDMF.

This framwork using Microsoft technologies, that you could create yourself, is being offered to those customers that stay actively enrolled in a Business Ready Enhancement plan, from Microsoft itself.

This framework makes use of SSIS packages, DMV's for Performance, ability to mark and see inactive data and move that data to an archive location, move it back as needed or mark as obsolete for total removal.

The following is a direct link to a presentation put on by Tao Wang Principal Development Manager Dynamics AX performance, at the AXUG Summit this year: TEC01 - The New Intelligence Data Management (IDM) Tool

Tao does a great job of going over the fact that the IDMF is very much a scalable solution. In that all can be on a single mahince, or as needed parts of it spread and scaled correctly, based on need.

Up until the release of this tool, Partners and Customers did what this tool already does. Create SSIS packages, use DMV's manaually and understanding what DMV's exists, how to join them and read them. Now, with this tool, both DB health, and size related to indexes, and inactive data can be dealt with, in a nice dashboard fashion.

I highly recommend downloading this now, and reviewing it. Set it up to hit a test instance of AX, and run through all the options it offers. Archive inactive data, bring it back, look at the performance dashboards, etc. etc.

That's all for now, but thanks Microsoft for taking and release to the public this great tool!

Till next time!

"Visit the Dynamics AX Community Page today!"