Dynamics AX, Windows Server AppFabric and Private Clouds

Convergence 2010 covered a lot of topics, from the functional to the technical, and spanning all Dynamics ERP brands.

One of the hot topics that was talked about was Cloud Computing. I talked about this year, early on being the year, and later the decade of the Cloud. (2010, Year of the Cloud.)

Since that post, I have had varing topics and post covered about cloud computing with Microsoft, and most of these talks have been around the public cloud services, with Windows Azure, SQL Azure and the like.



While at Convergence, I talked with current customers, and others about what the cloud means. There was some great examples, already, about how the Cloud services are set to enable and achieve what people can't in their own data centers.

Still when talking to customers, they are still trying to see what does the cloud solve for me? Also what does it do for my Dynamics AX investment? How do I get there?

These again, are all focused on the cloud computing power delivered by Windows Azure. This post however, I want to spend a little time talking about private clouds, that are hosted internally within a company.

This brings us to Microsoft's focus on empowering this, because the bottomline Hybrid clouds will be the norm for a along time. And for a while, that means that private clouds, and internal, on-premise software and applications will still remain the major focus for companies for sometime.

In an interview with Mike Ehrenberg from Microsoft, who I also interview here.: Interview with Microsoft Distinguished Engineer - Mike Ehrenberg, was done by MSDynamicsWorld.com, 'In the Dynamics Future: Microsoft’s Mike Ehrenberg Discusses Progress on Master Data Management, Workflow, Upgrade Quality'

The interview done by MSDynamicsWorld talks about aspects I have covered, and been covering, with MDM, Upgrades, etc. But what I want you to focus on is the section about workflows, and WCF services, with the Windows Server AppFabric.

From the interview.:
"Workflow Foundation has always needed a home - a SharePoint server or IIS for example, that could run the application. AppFabric is "the evolution of an app server", in Ehrenberg's words, allowing the workflow processes to be offloaded to on-premise servers or to the cloud where AppFabric is integrated into the Windows Azure platform.

"It's a scale-out environment...more of a scale and performance story," Ehrenberg explained."



So Windows Server AppFabric is the application server that will host WF and WCF Services.

Why is this important for us to understand with Dynamics AX? With the concept of Private clouds?

The reason this is important is for Dynamics AX 6 and beyond. Windows Server AppFabric is currently in Beta2 refresh release, and is schedule to be RTM this summer.

Dynamics AX has AIF Services, and workflow ability, and even more in Dynamics AX 6. Just reference back to my recent post.: Dynamics AX 6, DotNet 4 and the WF Designer

Right now, in Dynamics AX 2009, .Net 3.5 is used. With this, when you create Services to consume within AX, or if you publish services from AX AIF as WCF end points for other LOB to consume, that is hosted in IIS.

This also means, a lot of config file editing, custom reporting on errors possibly, needs for states of workflow services, etc. it's all a real manual process.

However with AppFabric, all of that changes. With the introduction of AppFabric, we will start to see the ability to use PowerShell Commandlets (Cmdlets) to automate some of this manaual task. We will also be able to have insight into the services that are running, have much better control over WF Services states, be able to quickly move, start, stop and disable services, deal with version issues, etc. etc.

So instead of just having our AIF published services on some IIS box, or our custom WCF / WF Services that we developed and consume within AX just sitting on some IIS box, having to go through the different manual processing of deploying, moving, config files, etc. we will get a more automated ability, deeper insight, and faster develop and deploy cycles than can currently exists with .Net 3.5.

Now what does this mean for private clouds? Lets go back to Mike E's statement.:
"[AppFabric will allow] the workflow processes to be offloaded to on-premise servers or to the cloud where AppFabric is integrated into the Windows Azure platform."

Right now, Microsoft is still putting together all the different aspects of what a private cloud will exists and look like, but at the heart of enabling this will be Windows Server AppFabric.



So Windows Server AppFabric will also be at the heart of having the ability to offload services, depending on need, and through PowerShell (Very powerful stuff here!) and AppFrabic, offload and push services to the cloud, and back down to on-premise.

Giving us the true ability to have hyrbid clouds, and also private clouds. AppFabric will be the enabling peice that will allow true private clouds to start existing, where compsite applications can be created, monitored, provisioned, versioned, all of these things that we face today, and handle will manual moves, config files, manual processes, in a more controlled, faster, better, cheaper fashion.

So with Dynamics AX, AppFabric becomes and important peice for hosting AIF Services in the future, and also for consuming services that live in the AppFabric Server, which is part of IIS and enabling WPAS (Windows Process Activation Service). WPAS enables TCP, MSMQ, and other forms of service activation and messages to be enabled.

So private clouds with Dynamics AX being a part of that cloud offering for enterprises to create composite applications that span not just Dynamics AX, but also any of their other LOB applications. And with this private cloud approach, and abilities offered with AppFabric, .Net 4.0, and more private and hyrbid clouds will become easier and easier to create, form, monitor, publish, deploy, and beyond!

So can you see why AppFabric is important to understand? What it will enable? How it will help? Why it's important to a company invested or investing in Dynamics AX?

That's all for now, but I have a whole lot of topics to cover. I will leave you with the following MSDN resources, that will help you dive into Windows Server AppFabric, and also Windows Azure AppFabric. There is to much to cover in one post, just about AppFabric. Expect more post on this topic in the future!

MSDN: Windows Server AppFabric
MSDN: Microsoft Windows Azure platform AppFabric

See you next time!

"Visit the Dynamics AX Community Page today!"

Microsoft's Cloud Portal

For a few years now, I have had post on and off talking about cloud computing. How it's going to change a lot of things. Then we started hearing more and more about Microsoft's vision of the cloud, cloud computing, Software+Services, "Three Screens and a Cloud."

Then at the start of this year, I posted the following entry.:
What can the Cloud offer you in 2010?

Where in that post, I talk about 2010 being the year of the cloud. Now it's finally here, and ready. Microsoft's got a whole host of Cloud services, and some have already been in the Cloud for years. Think about Hotmail, for example, their oldest cloud app really. I mean it's for sure fits the bill for what a Cloud App is. That's been up for nearly 15 years!

Now we have Office 2010 coming out, and their will be Office Web Apps released with it. A Cloud based version of office, to launch and go where you please. Then of course the new kids on the Microsoft cloud block is Windows Azure and SQL Azure. Two, if you will, 'Pure Cloud Platforms & Services'.

Microsoft also recently released their cloud portal, which can be found here.: Microsoft's Cloud Portal - Were All in!



Also posted on this, is Steve Ballmer's video of his speech yesterday to UW crowd. In this he is quoted in saying.: "The cloud fuels Microsoft, and Microsoft fuels the cloud." - Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft.

The video is high level, but it should help bring into light that Microsoft has been in the cloud for years. And the approach, with familiar products and technologies, the lines between cloud and on-premise, that the Software+Serrvices visison brings will continue to blur for the end users. Which means more flexibility and possibilities for Companies and their Technology staffs to solve the business needs each of them have.

This directly links to Microsoft Dynamics AX. The cloud is here, and solutions can be designed and developed that include Exchange in the Cloud, SharePoint in the Cloud, Office Web Apps, .Net Cloud Based Services that run on Windows Azure and SQL Azure, and Dynamics AX at the heart of the business, being it's ERP / SCM platform.

I recommend checking out the new Microsoft Cloud portal, and adding it to your thought processes. How can these technologies be used by my clients, by me, to help my clients solve real world business problems. And if your and end customer, you should be asking your VAR / ISV to help you with designing and planning of your solutions, and how Cloud Apps, and Pure Cloud Services can be used to help you be more Dynamic, more flexible, and get things done, better, faster, cheaper.





"Visit the Dynamics AX Community Page today!"

Some blog spotlights: AX and the Cloud Example, AIF Error and AX 6.0 Xpp Editor Updates

I have been really busy, and I have some good post that I hope you will enjoy coming up soon, including a new article I will be writing for MSDynamicsWorld.com.

With that said, there have been some really great post over the past several weeks, and I wanted to make sure and highlight them.

The fist is DAXGuy's entry, on an AX example for working with the Cloud. As I wrote about early this year, What can the Cloud offer you in 2010?, 2010 for sure is going to be the year of the cloud. DAXGuy took this further with all the talking, and gave us a really good walk through example of how to get a service in the cloud up and running, and make use of it with Dynamics AX. That post can be found here.: AX on Cloud 9



From the post.:
"Lately there has been a lot of activity related to cloud computing with introduction of Windows AZURE. It truly is an interesting technology providing businesses wider opportunities. Well I decided to explore AZURE a bit and did a small POC on AX integration with AZURE... ... I was consuming a AZURE WCF Service from Dynamics AX. There is a lot of potential in this. Maybe in next generation AIF , developers will be able to generate Cloud AIF directly from AX."

Next in line, we have Dianne Siebold's weblog about AIF. Recently, she posted about the discovery of a very unintuitive error message that you might get and how to start troubleshooting it. That post can be found here.: “Request Failed” Error in AIF

The request failed with the following error: The element 'SalesTable' in namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/dynamics/2008/01/documents/SalesOrder' has invalid child element 'LanguageId' in namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/dynamics/2008/01/documents/SalesOrder'.

List of possible elements expected: 'QuotationId, ReceiptDateConfirmed, ReceiptDateRequested, RecId, RecVersion, Reservation, ReturnDeadline, ReturnItemNum, ReturnReasonCodeId, ReturnReplacementCreated, ReturnReplacementId, ReturnStatus, SalesGroup, SalesId, SalesName, SalesOriginId, SalesPoolId, SalesResponsible, SalesStatus, SalesTaker, SalesType, SalesUnitId, SettleVoucher, ShipCarrierAccount, ShipCarrierAccountCode, ShipCarrierBlindShipment, ShipCarrierDeliveryContact, ShipCarrierDlvType, ShipCarrierExpeditedShipment, ShipCarrierFuelSurcharge, ShipCarrierID, ShipCarrierResidential, ShippingDateConfirmed, ShippingDateRequested, smmCampaignId, smmSalesAmountTotal, StatProcId, TaxGroup, totalBalance, TotalCashDiscount, TotalInvoice, TotalMiscCharges, TotalSalesTax, TransactionCode, Transport, URL, VATNum, SalesLine, DocuRefHeader, MarkupTransHeader' in namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/dynamics/2008/01/documents/SalesOrder'


This is actually a very helpful tip and post when working with AIF and you start getting some strange error messages that's hard to discern what is really going on.

Finally, Vicent, who posted last October about some update highlights to the X++ editor in Dynamics has some new material up, for a part II on what's new in the X++ editor. I wrote about part I, here.: Dynamics AX 6.0 - aka 2011 - X++ Editor

Well you can find his latest entries, by going to the following link.: Dynamics AX6 – The new X++ editor (part 2)

"In a completion session, holding the ctrl key will make the drop-down dialog transparent, so you can see the code underneath:"





I want to say thanks to each of these fine bloggers for sharing their information with the rest of the Dynamics Community. It's because of such efforts that the Dynamics Community continues to grow, and is able to help those looking for solutions.

That's all for now, but as I pointed out in the start of this post, I have some really nice entries coming. Check back soon, and see you then!




"Visit the Dynamics AX Community Page today!"

A Possible Dynamics AX Solution - with the Cloud

Alright,

As I talked about in my recent post, More Focus on the Cloud, I want to start showing how Dynamics AX 2009 and beyond can be used with the cloud, cloud services, cloud based applications and platforms.

To kick this off, I want to talk about a possibility that can be done today. So lets invent a company, called CompanyA. They already have Dynamics AX 2009 in place, and some integrations with Dynamics AX with other applications.

They are wanting though, to have a field service application for their field service agents. These agents are located all over the world, and sometimes are contract employees. They have a desired to have the Field Service mobile application to work directly with their instance of Dynamics AX. They want to be able to keep track of work done, by who, hours, operations performed, charges to the clients, ticket information, etc.

They don't want to open their network to the world, and don't really have a lot of internal staff to support hosting a web presence internally. They want to off load the hosting somewhere else.

Also they want to be able to push the data out in the cloud from AX for the field service agents to pick up when they can connect. Finally, they want to pull data from the cloud datasource, to get updates from the field service agents.

So with that said, lets look at this.:


This daigram shows Dynamics AX instance on the top part, with it's core business logic. Then you have AIF and the AIF generated .Net Services. These services live at the service layer, where some SSIS packages and custom .Net Services are used to perform some data extraction and loading for reporting into a datawarehouse possibly.

You have the Services layer acting as the bridge between the Dynamics AX On Premise solution, to the SQL Azure based Field Service Database.

With this option, which by the way can be done right now with the CTP version of SQL Azure, a very secure connection to the outside world, with limited and controlled interactions between Dynamics AX and the SQL Azure database takes place.

Next we have the Field Service Agents, that have a mobile based solution designed to connect to the SQL Azure database, when it can connect to the internet, to download specific information for that field service agent and to also upload updates from the field service agent.

So with this possible solution design, we can address the needs to the client, by making use of SQL Azure Cloud based database. And I point out again, this can be done right now with Dynamics AX 2009 and SQL Azure CTP.

Now to take some steps further, lets look at a diagram from MSDN.:


This image shows how a windows or web client, on-premise can be used and make use of the Windows Azure platform for SQL Azure and Application code that lives in the cloud.

That's all for now. More on this topic to come. If you have questions, issues, interests about seeing more of this. Drop me a comment on this post.

Till next time!




"Visit the Dynamics AX Community Page today!"