My Review of "Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Services"

I hope everyone has had a great and productive Dynamics week thus far! I know it's a busy time of year for projects, and changes that a new year brings with it. I wanted to take the time and focus this week on a book I was asked to review. What I'm talking about, is the "Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Services" book that was recently released.



This was a book I was ready to see released, and one that I wanted to put to the test. It's a topic that needs understanding by anyone implementing Dynamics AX 2012. What is learned when truly diving into services with Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 is a foundation for the future.



To help frame the importance of this topic, lets look at an Interview from the past. Doing so will help give meaning to the mention of how services are the foundation for the future of Microsoft Dynamics. Here, you will find my interview with Lachlan Cash from Microsoft.: Microsoft's strategy and vision for Dynamics AX and SOA.

This interview took place in March of 2009, nearly four years ago. However what is laid out in this vision interview is what we see today with Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 & R2. The vision has become reality, and now it's time to embrace the changes that this foundation of services represents.

From the interview.:
"SOA has been about connecting systems together, we think that it has more a place with-in the application as a fundamental shift in the way business logic is written and designed. This is a long term strategy to make it easier for our customers and partners to adapt the business application to their needs and integrate with other line of business applications." - Lachlan Cash, Microsoft

With this understanding, and a blast from the past, lets look at the amazing job authors Klaas Deforche & Kenny Saelen did with this book. From start to finish it is well thought out, easy to find specific information about topics, and can take a newbie on a journey of services enlightenment.



Starting off, the concepts are covered very well, including basic concepts like "What are services and SOA?". Klass & Kenny advance the reader through a what's new section, and how this section is so important to grasp for those that have been working with Dynamics AX for many years.



All possible service types are covered very well, including the needed understanding for working with Collections, via the infamous AifCollectionTypeAttribute. The reader is throw into great examples that enforce basic concepts, while introducing the 'to-become' services jedi master!

As further proof of Klass & Kenny's understanding what services are in AX 2012, they devoted the entire Chapter 5 to the explain & explore the SysOperation Framework. The following is an excerpt from the that chapter.:
"The SysOperation framework is new in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, and is the preferred way of creating batch jobs. It replaces the RunBaseBatch framework, which remains available for backwards compatibility. When Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 was released, the SysOperation framework was known as the Business Operation Framework or BOF."


Image from book comparing RunBase vs. SysOperation.

The authors also cover well the system services, uses of the system services, and giving full, tested examples throughout the book.

Like any book review, there is always something that can be added. A book, like a house, as any author or architect well knows, is never really finished. It's just a static version, or a version release for consumption and use. With that, there are a few area's that I would like to have seen including in this.

First one, which is near and dear to my heart, is the ODataQueryService. You can find out more about OData and Dynamics AX at the following.: AX-OData Queries.

This, is a very useful system service, that saw much improvements with the release of Dynamics AX 2012 R2. Further this service will continue to become more and more important to fully help complete the vision that was laid out by Lachlan Cash, in the above referenced interview.

Finally, the other area that is the biggest hole in this book is Debugging Services in AX 2012. The referenced link there, covers just the steps needed for getting started, but honestly this is a topic that needs some deep dives, to cover it well and understand the nuances of debugging services for AX 2012.

With this, I give the book a 4.25/5 possible score. Overall this is a really great book, and I would recommend anyone implementing Dynamics AX 2012 to have this as their go to services book.

Well that's it for this week. I plan to get back into the serious side of business insights next week! Check back soon, as more to come. Till Next Time!


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Introducing IDB Solutions - a new start!

It is with great pleasure, that today with the official start of #Conv12 I can introduce my new venture: IDB Solutions, LLC. Our focus is being a consulting firm that drives value for new & existing Microsoft Dynamics AX customers & partners.

We have set ourselves up in a way, that our customers are both partners & customers in the Dynamics Ecosystem. Being that our drive, and primary goal is around value for partners & customers connect with us, to find out how we can help you with your project needs!

The following is a list of services we offer.:

• Microsoft Dynamics AX - From Upgrades to AX 2012, helping with new implementations, Business Process Modeling, complex integration's as well as development & technical services.
• Business Intelligence - our deep understanding and focus around AX, IDB Solutions can help deliver the most value for you through correct definition, development and use of BI
• Cloud Computing - Focused on the correct use of cloud computing technologies for extending your AX solution.
• Mobile ERP / CRM - Implementing ISV Solutions & custom development for mobile solutions that deliver real value for your AX needs.

I'm currently at Convergence 2012, so make sure to connect with us and see how our knowledge and expertise can drive the most value for your project needs! Till Next Time!

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AX 2012 and the value of Microsoft's Visual Studio LightSwitch

Recently, I posted an article on my column, for the Microsoft Dynamics Community site, in which I focused in on the Any Device ERP concept. The push towards this concept, enabling true mobile ERP, as I stated in the article, will actually help drive adoption of the Microsoft Windows 8 powered devices.



Also, including in this post, I highlighted and pointed to the use of Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch. I'm really stoked about this product, and the more and more I look at it, the more value I see it can bring to companies. The value, in which I'm referring to here is all about giving companies the ability to simply, and in a fast nature, create Line-Of-Business Applications quickly and easily. This means faster Time-to-Value for such solutions, that are needed by companies, which can extend from Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012.



We see, with AX 2012, a push for it being the central hub of business logic, operations, data and delivery of business intelligence. With this, we also see the move for exposing data, API's and business logic internal and external of AX 2012, via Services. Because of this, companies can use LightSwitch, and it's ability to quickly and easily create apps that extend AX for a company, and help create a more total solution.

This is done, via AX services, be that Document Services, or Custom Services and Service Operations. Taking this design approach then, of exposing Data and Business logic from AX via services, these services then themselves can be consumed within a LightSwitch Application. A great resource for walking through this, by example can be seen at the following location: MSDN: LightSwitch - Consuming Web Services

From the post: "The aim of this document is to show developers how you can easily configure LightSwitch to consume Web Services. This walk-through assumes you have a background knowledge of creating basic applications with LightSwitch."



Having this example, we can now extend AX 2012, with LightSwitch for internally hosted Line-Of-Business (LOB) applications, on IIS, and even quickly scale and create applications that are deployed to Microsoft's Cloud Offering, Azure. In order to enable the scaling to the cloud, we do need to deploy the AX 2012 Services, via IIS, so that they can be consumed externally by the outside world. Doing this, means then, that quickly and easily we can create a Hybrid cloud story, for AX customers, and quickly bring the value to a customer that the cloud brings with scale, agility, and exposing AX business logic and data for consumption through such LightSwitch created apps.

For those customers, that have invested in AX, working with LightSwitch from Visual Studio 2010, will seem familiar, in how it's ability to work with Entity Data Framework, ease of creating and working with services, as well as the Tree Style design of forms, and buttons, that feels similar to AX and how it's forms and UI elements are designed.



So, if your a Microsoft Dynamics AX Customer, I highly recommend looking into either having your Partner, or your staff work with Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch, and how it can be used to extend your AX investment, quickly, efficiently and fast. That's always the goal, and keep in mind Simple is King of value, and let me tell you LightSwitch is one heck of a product that truly simplifies the creation of Line-Of-Business (LOB) applications. It's all about Time-to-Value, and that is why LightSwitch is a tool that should be considered, for completing your companies / customers total solution.

These applications, can then be made a part of the AX story, either hosted externally in the cloud, or internally. After creating and deploying a LightSwitch App, it can be incorporated directly into the user experience, via links hosted within Role Center Pages, to the LightSwitch App UI, or hosted within the AX 2012 Rich Client Forms and UI.



Bringing this full circle and to have a little forward looking exercise here, I personally believe LightSwitch, which currently delivers it's UI via SilverLight, will quickly be updated, once Windows 8 comes out. I believe, that Microsoft will enable you the ability to choose your target UI, be that SilverLight, or XAML+HTML5+JavaScript. The idea, is that LightSwitch will still create the UI for you, and enable fast and easy creation of Apps, that target even the Metro Style UI of Windows 8, and therefore having company specific Win8 Metro Style Apps, that work directly with & extend a companies AX 2012 ERP investment.



The following links, are useful resources that are used throughout this blog post. I would strongly encourage spending time researching and learning from these resources, and others to see how Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch can help you drive the most value out of your AX 2012 investment.:

• Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch Home Page
• Guidelines for Creating WCF RIA Services for LightSwitch
• Walkthrough of a Real-World LightSwitch App used at Microsoft
• LightSwitch Metro Theme Extension Sample

Well that's all for now, I hope everyone has a great productive week. Check back soon as I have a lot of good post coming out, all around AX, the Ecosystem, Spotlights, Interviews and more! Till Next time!


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AX 2012 - AX-SSRS Report Design Concepts

Recently I have been focusing on the BI and reporting aspects that come as part of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012. There is a lot of great resources for this topic, and it's a topic that drives a lot of value, when speaking about AX 2012.

Since this is the case, I wanted to continue my focus on reporting, with this blog post, focused on the two categories, if you will, of types of AX-SSRS reports. These are Model Driven Solutions and Code Driven Solutions.


Model Driven Solution Diagram

First up, lets talk about the model driven solution, in terms of AX-SSRS reports. When speaking about the model driven approach to AX-SSRS report development, the focus is around the use of Query objects, from the AOT, to model your report with. The idea, with such reports, in that very little X++ code is needed to enable them.

This path, should be favored as much as possible, as it's the least amount of TCO in terms of report development. With this approach, and with report design in general, we have the report itself, and surrounding it is the design, data and control aspects of the report.

When talking in terms of the model driven approach, the design, as you can see from above is created within Visual Studio 2010. Further, the data aspect, is represented via a Query object, and a good example of the control for such a designed report is ranges.

Keep in mind, when thinking about such design patterns, that the Query object is meant to be a re-usable API in AX 2012. The same query object that powers a AX-SSRS report design, could also enable a PowerPivot report, or could be used to help define and deliver Contextual BI elements, say for an InfoPart.

Moveing forward with this thought process, lets look to the next category, for AX-SSRS report design. This is the Code Driven Solution.


Code Driven Solution Diagram

With this concept, we have our basic design elements, or constructs for reference. It's the design, data and control points. Looking at the above diagram and comparing the code driven solution vs. the model driven, we see that at the heart of the design, is still Visual Studio 2010.

Beyond that though, these are much different than the Model driven solution, and the use of queries. The idea for this concept, is when code is needed to create the data behind a report. When this is the case, the data, for the above is represented by RDP, or Report Data Provider. This is a new class type for AX 2012, that enables the ability to design more complex reports, when the need to "mash" data from different sources arises.

Moving along with this concept, we also see that for the control, we have a Data Contract. This too is new to AX 2012, and we have seen some of these, in my coverage of services in AX 2012..

The data contract, when used in a design pattern that is laid out in the above, is meant to act as a simple class, that ties extended data types, that represent the data contract properties, to the report design itself. Enabling, therefore, the correct formatting of data, based on underlying table and data type designs.

With these two concepts in mind, we can start to move forward with report design. A big focus, and understanding point needs to be seen here. That is, you don't see the mention of BIDS, or Business Intelligence Development Studio. That is the standard SSRS design piece. The reason this is the case, is that VS2010 and a special project type are used to enable the creation of AX-SSRS reports. BIDS is actually hosted within VS2010, at least the design space is, so once in the VS2010 project, it's very familiar process for those use to using BIDS. However BIDS, and standard SSRS reports are not meant to be used in delivery data, with AX 2012.

To help you further, with learning these concepts, there are a couple of resources I would like to point you to. First, the Microsoft Dynamics AX BI team blog: Dynamics BI Team Blog. This is a resource I have highlighted before, and one I want to make sure everyone is aware of and makes use of.

Also, the same team, behind that blog, creates YouTube videos, at the following YouTube channel: Dynamics AX BI YouTube Channel. Here again, we have another great resource, in which the main topics of this post are discussed more fully, and taking to a deeper level. Some really great video's out there, so I highly recommend reviewing them, as you can.

Finally, Microsoft recently published the Whats New: Reporting for Developers in AX 2012. This is a really great resource, espically for those that have done AX-SSRS report development in AX 2009. All the concepts contained within that page, need to be fully understood, so that you can take full advantage of all the great improvements Microsoft has given us with this release, around report development.

Well that's all for this post, check back soon though as there is a whole lot more to come.

Till next time!

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Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 - A Dive into System Services, Metadata Service

Recently I wrote last week about Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, talking about a dive into Services.

One of the area's that I covered in this post was around System Services. To recap:
"System Services are meant to give a window into the Dynamics AX 2012 world. Part of that world involves Query Service, as well as the Metadata Service. These two services are meant to be very specific uses. The Query Service is meant to take and offer an ad-hoc ability to query datasets, from AX 2012."

With this initial post as our guide, lets take and step through these different area's of services, get some real examples, and talk about what kind of value each type can bring to an implementation.

System services, are new in AX 2012, and so their value will develop overtime, and more and more people find ways to make use of them, to drive value. The Query service is meant, as stated, to give the ability to have an ad-hoc nature to query data from an AX 2012 instance. I don't actually recommend using this that much, as we get into Document Services in a later post, and see that most all data access should take place, starting with a query object inside Dynamics AX 2012.

With that said, lets focus our time for this post, on the Metadata service. To start, the system services are auto deployed out of the box, and so there is nothing that you have to do, in other than make a reference to the given Metadata service's WSDL.

To do that, the following is the format for accessing the metadata service.: http://servername:port/DynamicsAx/Services/MetadataService

This, if placed in a web broswer, will bring back the WSDL for this given service, which is true for any service, or service group I should say. You will notice that this is how you make a reference, from say Visual Studio 2010.

In doing so, and if you look at the app.config file from within your project, you will notice though, that the binding is actually net.tcp//. This is because these system services are hosted, out-of-the-box, within the AOS itself. More in a later post on options for hosting services.

Example app.config


You will notice, in the above example app.config file, that I have changed the maxBufferSize and the maxReceivedMessageSize. The reason this is the case, is because my example, with getting metadata about a given table, pulls back a larger resultset than the default settings for this WCF net.tcp binding is configured to receive. If you don't do this, the first time you use the Metadata service, it will error out. Keep in mind, this is WCF we are dealing with, and though it's gotten a lot easier to deal with bindings and settings, it's still something that must be done.

Now that we have our reference within our Visual Studio 2010 project, lets take and dive into working with it.

For our example, lets create some unit of code, that will take and call the metadata service, and in turn ask for metadata about a specific table. The following is the C# code for doing just that.:


For reference, and being able to search with google or bing, the following is that code in plain text:
"Ax2012MetadataService.AxMetadataServiceClient cl =
new Ax2012MetadataService.AxMetadataServiceClient();

cl.Open();

string[] axTableNames = new string[1];
axTableNames[0] = "CustTable";

Ax2012MetadataService.TableMetadata[] axTableMetaData =
cl.GetTableMetadataByName(axTableNames);

MessageBox.Show("Title Field1: " + axTableMetaData[0].TitleField1.Name +
", Title Field2: " + axTableMetaData[0].TitleField2.Name);

cl.Close();"

Now what we have here is straight forward, I'm taking and creating an instance of the AX2012MetadataServiceClient which was generated for me by VS2010, when adding the service reference to the project.

After that, I open the given client object, and fill a string[] array with a single entry, for the "CustTable". After doing this, I take and fill a TableMetadata[] array, which is part of the WSDL DataContracts supplied from AX 2012, with calling the client and a .GetTableMetadataByName(axTableNames) and pass it my string array of tables that only contains, for this example, the CustTable.

After this, I'm able to simply call a message box, and show the Title Fields 1 & 2, that are supplied by AX 2012, and passed back within that TableMetaData[] array.

The result is as follows.:


As you can see, we get back the Title Field information, and really we can get back anything that is contained within the properties of a given table object, which is the metadata for this given type of object.

This is the same for classes, EDT's, enums, forms, etc. etc. This is actually a pretty powerful class, as you can start to see uses of this new service, for given the ability of AX 2012 to describe itself to other LOB applications, as with the correct rights, you can get a list of tables, and then from those tables, a list of every field within those tables, and there EDT's or base enums, and then information about every single one of those.

One thing I will add, is that I have noticed the Autoreports, that run from File > Print > Print for a given form, actually make use of the MetadataService for fulfilling part of it's needs for generating the autoreports in AX 2012. So that is a solid use, of this new offering.

As me move into AX 2012, which was released as GA in 25 countries yesterday, see: Drum Roll Please… Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 is now on the market!, we will start to see uses of these system services that help enable, extend and the bottom line, drive business value for customers that make use of this great new ERP platform.

Well that's all for now, but check back soon as a whole lot more to come! Till next time!



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Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 - A Dive Into Services

With the release of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, services are a key role that enable many parts of AX. This includes from Office, to internal use, to extending and working with complex datasets, and even to expose custom busienss logic.

To help better understand services in AX 2012, lets first take and understand what services means. There are three distinct service context, which are.:

• System Services - These are services that come as part of AX 2012 offering,
  like the Metadata Service, User Session Service & Query Service
• Document Service - This carries similar concepts and design on previous version of AX, in that a document service is meant to wrap complex datasets, for CRUD based operations. There are some differences now, and we will review these.
• Custom Services - These are meant to wrap simple datacontract needs, or to expose custom business logic. I will note here: These are never recommend to handle complex data operations. Use Document services for that.

System Services
System Services are meant to give a window into the Dynamics AX 2012 world. Part of that world involves Query Service, as well as the Metadata Service. These two services are meant to be very specific uses. The Query Service is meant to take and offer an ad-hoc ability to query datasets, from AX 2012. Now I must say this should be used with caution. If this query, or integration is meant to be re-used in any fashion, you should build a query object, and create a document service from it.

There is a pretty decent example on MSDN, that shows how to use a Windows Form, and Dataviews / grids, for showing off the power of AX 2012, and the Query Service, located here.: Walkthrough: Calling the Query Service with a User-Defined Query [AX 2012]

The meta data service is meant to give the ability for other LOB applications to query against to allow AX 2012 to self describe information about objects that reside within the system. Here again, the use should be limited.

Document Services
Document Services are meant to truly be the path, in which any real complex operations of CRUD, or Create, Read, Update & Delete, operations are meant to be executed via. The idea here, is that a Query Object, or set of Query objects created within the AOT, represent a document service, that is deployed, and consumed by either AX itself, or other LOB systems.

This includes both master data, like EcoResProduct (or Products), as well as Customer, Vendors, and event transactional data like Sales Orders and purchase orders. This has improved a lot since a AX 2009, and the ability to quickly deploy such services in AX 2012 is now such an easy task.

Custom Services
Custom services represent, to most C# developers, something that has been common for a little while. This is, DataContracts, and Service Oeprations. As mentioned above, this is not meant to represent complex data opertaions, but instead, to expose simple data contracts, as well as custom business logic through service operations.

Finally, There are some guidelines when thinking in terms of use of services, which include design patterns around "chatty" services and integrations.

Where possible, it should always be considered, to take and perform the least amount of calls as possible. This means instead of sending a single Entity Object that represents a Document Service create, for example, for a given table, per service call, the better approach would be to build up a collection of said objects, with a single call for the entire collection.

Of course, this might not be always applicable, where you look to transactional data needs, where the very nature of the integration leans towards possible one-off single calls. Still having this kind of design approach in mind, will help in *not* creating possible performance issues around your services related integrations and needs.

There are also other topics, that I will continue to dive into from this post, including the use of Query Objects being represented as OData feeds, and a deeper dive into the Business Operations Framework and the use of the SysOperations for enabling service use to replace the RunBaseBatch framework for business logic and reports.

That's all for now, but check back soon as I dive deeper into each of these topics, and show off real world examples for each. Just keep in mind, the idea is to abstract and extend via SOA, or service-oriented architecture. There should never be a reason, now, to ever go driectly to the AX 2012 database. All interactions, should always take place via the application layer, and typically through services.

Well that's all for now, but check back soon, as more to come! Till Next time!



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Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 - At your Service

Yesterday, I talked about Business Operations Framework for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012.

This touched on a new concept, that will take us away from RunBaseBatch, and other concepts in AX, and move us towards some of the new features, that have never existed before, with the SysOperations Framework, and into true SOA approaches within, and extending AX.

Today, a new post from Microsoft, that continues a series well into the launch event for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, has arrived. I'm talking about the following post.: At Your Service: Microsoft Dynamics AX2012 Integration and Web Services


Caption: In Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, inbound ports provide a logical grouping of services, which model specific integration points between the ERP solution and an external system.

From the post.:
"Standards-based web services are undoubtedly the programming model with the widest possible reach across platform boundaries. In Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, we have greatly emphasized the role of services, both in integration with other line-of-business applications and as a programming model to expose the rich functionality of the application. We believe these enhancements will benefit our customers by significantly reducing the time it takes to develop custom applications and by enabling the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to reach the entire organization."

Service are for sure the future with development, inside Dynamics AX, as well as extending AX, and other LOB applications reaching into AX. This is the vision and the desired goal.

Embracing this now, as an Architect, Developer, and general AX consultant or company, will help you and your clients reach their full Dynamic Potential that drives business value, while taking advantages of the latest technology advancements.

Is critical, that we take into consideration all that Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 brings to the table. Doing so will help shape the business world, from the older, strict, and cumbersome business systems of the 90's that so many Dynamics Competitors shove down their clients throats, and bring to the forefront what end users, and business users need, today. Dynamic, Flexible & Scalable business processes, that adapt and grow, as the business that implement and need them.

That's all for now, but check back soon, as a whole lot more to come, including interviews, blog spotlights, continued dives into AX 2012, and more! Till next time!



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.Net Business Connector Not Recommend for AX 2012

Yesterday, I posted the following.: Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 - System Architecture Overview

In that post, I gave a link to the following Microsoft TechNet article.: Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 - System Architecture

Well one of the things that I did not highlight, but I wanted to have for it's own post was the fact that the following stands out on that article for TechNet.:

Note:
Use services and AIF to interact with the Microsoft Dynamics AX application. We recommend against using the .NET Business Connector to integrate with the Microsoft Dynamics AX application.

I think this really needs to sink in for people, and that everyone needs to take special attention to this note. The idea, is that services and AIF, which their end points are services, is the desired goal for how AX with interact with the outside world, and other LOB applications.

So, if you have a LOB application, or custom app that you want to integrate and work with AX, and it's business logic, the .Net BC is not the method that is desired with Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012.

It's still around, and for good reason, supporting all that IP that is already been developed around the .Net BC. However, I believe we can start to see the writing on the wall for this, and the design pattern, in that the .Net BC, I doubt, will exists beyond AX 2012 for such use.

Just an example of how Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 is going to change how we implement, integrate and work with AX.

I think it's a great move, and one that has been the moving direction for a while, make everything SOA / WOA based, through services. Everything connecting through services. This sets up for a whole future of hybrid mix possibilities for where services and software lives within a companies total solution.

That's all for now, however I wanted to point this out specifically, after starting with yesterday post. More to come, as we dive deeper and deeper into different aspects of AX 2012.

Till next time!

"Visit the Dynamics AX Community Page today!"