AX 2012 on Microsoft Azure-Overview

AX 2012 on Microsoft Azure

Nov,5 2014

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Agenda
Introduction Microsoft Azure
Benefits of Azure
Azure services model Architecture
Making deployments with Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services
Cloud hosted environments tool to deploy the following types of
Dynamics AX 2012 R3 environments

Considerations when deploying Dynamics AX 2012 R3 on Azure

Copyright 2013 Avanade Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Introduction Azure
Microsoft Azure (formerly Windows Azure before 25 March 2014) is a cloud computing platform and infrastructure,
for building, deploying and managing applications and services through a global network of Microsoft-managed
datacenters. It provides both Platform as a service(PAAS) and Infrastructure as a service(IAAS) and supports many
different programming languages, tools and frameworks, including both Microsoft-specific and third-party software and
systems.
Microsoft Azure released the following new features:
- Websites allows developers to build sites using ASP.NET, PHP, Node.js, or Python and can be deployed using
FTP, Team Foundation Server.
- Virtual machines let developers migrate applications and infrastructure without changing existing code, and can
run both Windows Server and Linux virtual machines.
- Cloud services - Microsoft's Platform as a Service (PaaS) environment that is used to create scalable
applications and services. It previously named as "Hosted Services". The Cloud Services are containers of hosted
applications. These applications can be internet-facing public web applications (such as web sites and ecommerce solutions), or they can be private processing engines for other work, such as processing orders or
analyzing data.
- Data management - SQL Database, formerly known as SQL Azure Database, works to create, scale and extend
applications into the cloud using Microsoft SQL Server technology. Integrates with Active Directory.
- Media services - A PaaS offering that can be used for encoding, content protection, streaming, and/or analytics.

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 on Microsoft Azure :

Dynamics AX 2012 R3 includes capabilities such as: Financial management , Human capital management,
Manufacturing , Supply chain management , Project management and accounting , Retail , Business intelligence and
reporting. To meet the demand and expectations of both customers and partners, Dynamics AX 2012 R3 is supported to
run on Azures Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS).
Goal: The goal is that we will be able to deploy Dynamics AX 2012 R3 to run fully in the cloud, or various hybrid
scenarios, to leverage the power, simplicity and cost savings of Azure
Flexible benefits: Budget maximization, easily scalable operations, simplified equipment provisioning for development
and testing environments, and support for the various demands of the business.
Copyright 2013 Avanade Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Benefits of Azure
Agility: For more quickly
and easily respond to the
changing needs of your
organization.
Elasticity and
flexibility :To scale up
(or scale down)
infrastructure
dynamically to meet the
changing needs of your
business

Save time :
Hardware acquisition
and deployment can
be reduced to just a
few hours using the
new deployment
facilities provided in
Lifecycle Services

Advantages using
Azure over traditional
on-premises data
centers and
deployment

Reduce costs: To build

out or manage infrastructure
with Azure IaaS, your IT
costs may be greatly
reduced through the
advantages of only paying
for the resources you
actually use

Speed development:
Use of the LCS Cloud hosted
environments tool to deploy
numerous demo (and soon
development and test
environments) to help speed
your development efforts,
increase uptime of your
implementations, and create
better applications faster

Security and privacy :

Delivers a trusted foundation
on which customers can
design, build and manage
their own secure cloud
applications and
infrastructure and this
extends to running Dynamics
AX 2012 R3 on the Microsoft
cloud.

Copyright 2013 Avanade Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Primary benefits of Azure

Build, modify and distribute applications to the Web with minimal on-premise resources.
Perform services such as large-volume storage, batch processing, intense or high
volume computations, off-premises
Reduce cost and risks of building and extending on-premise resources
Reduce the effort and cost of IT managment

Cloud Comparing Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services

1) Database : Databases are used to persist your application data such as users, contents, orders etc., there are several database engines. Here
can understand how SQL Server runs in all three cloud providers.
Microsoft Azure provides SQL Database as a low cost, multi-tenant cloud database.
Amazon has two models: (1) You can create a VM with SQL Server. (2) You can use SQL RDS (fully managed by AWS).
Features

Microsoft Azure

Am azon Web Services

Database Support

SQL Database (SQL Azure)

SQL Server 2008 R2 or Greater and AWS SQL RDS

(Managed SQL Instance)

2) Cloud Storage and CDN : Cloud storage is a file system where you store and retrieve files from your applications. Content
Deliver Networks (CDN) were created to improve website performance by distributing assets to CDN nodes (edge servers). Cloud
providers of CDNs have edge servers around the world and distributed your assets across these networks. By putting your asset s closer
to your site visitors, you can dramatically improve site performance.
Features

Microsoft Azure

Am azon Web Services

Storage

Microsoft provides the Azure Blob; one of the highperforming storage providers among other providers.

Amazon provides Simple Storage Service (S3), w hich

has several features above and beyond w hat is
included w ith the Azure Blob

If you want to run your code without having control over the OS, VM, and so on, then go with Microsoft Azure . For example if you
have stateless (no dependency on VM) applications or websites which does not require any persistency then you go with Microso ft Azure.
If you need more control over the machines and software then go with Amazon. For example if you need to run some of the
enterprise servers like SharePoint or SOLR then Amazon EC2 instances are the best fit because they are persisted VMs.
If you just need compute to process large data for reporting then either of these options will work well .
Copyright 2013 Avanade Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Key differences with amazon cloud services

Best price for performance : Azure leads Amazon Web Services in several third party performance tests. Cloud
Spectator's recent study, A Comparative Analysis of 5 Large Cloud IaaS Providers, showed Azure Infrastructure
Services was the highest performing provider and on average has 3X better price for performance than Amazon
EC2(Elastic Compute).

Best hybrid solution: Only Microsoft provides a consistent platform approach that lets you easily move between
on-premises and the public cloud. While Amazon Web Services locks customers into a proprietary AMI format.
Azure uses the open VHD standard that allows you to easily move your workloads from your datacenter to Azure or
a hosting service provider and back to on-premises. It provides you with great choice and flexibility in creating
your own roadmap to the cloud based on your unique business needs and existing technology
investments.

Best development-test solution : Save time and money when you develop and test applications with Azure.
Unlike AWS, Azure provides by-the-minute rather than hourly billing, saving you money when you're developing
and testing your applications. You'll also benefit from no charges for stopped VMs and you can easily export the
virtual machine in your test environment back to on-premises for production.

Best platform for Microsoft applications and databases : Azure works seamlessly with your existing Microsoft
applications and, unlike Amazon Web Services, Microsoft provides end-to-end support from the infrastructure to
your operating system to your applications.

Best support for Oracle: Azure is the only cloud provider certified for Oracle applications and databases.

For details : Refer to http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/solutions/dev-test/

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Azure Service Model

Azure offers three flavors of services
Azure Operating System (Platform as a Service)
Worker/Web Role, Blobs(Binary large Objects), Queues, Tables
Azure .NET Services (Software as a Service)
Access Control Service
SQL Azure (SQL Server in the sky)
Workflow Services
Azure Hosted Services (Application as a Service)
Hosted Exchange
Host SharePoint

Services of Microsoft Azure Platform

.

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Azure Service Model

SAAS

PAAS

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IAAS

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) delivers hardware (server, network, load balancer, and so on) and software (OS, database,
and app servers). Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the largest IaaS provider. Users have full control over the VM and need to
manage the OS, system upgrades, security patches, and so on
Platform as a Service (PaaS) provides infrastructure and OS management (such as, security, OS upgrades, paths, and so
on). Users do not have control over the OS, system updates, versions, patches, security, and so on, which are controlled and
implemented by PaaS provider.

Copyright 2013 Avanade Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Azure Service Model

continue-2

Dynamics AX 2012 R3 is deployed to Azure subscription using Azure IaaS. This means that Azure
provides the virtual machines, storage, and networking capabilities to support implementation by still
giving you the control you want of your systems. The way we do for on-premises deployments, you still
are required to manage, secure, and license the operating systems, applications, and data installed on
the virtual machines in implementations.

Azure is simply providing virtualized hardware and networking facilities through your subscription, which
is what grants you access to, and controls the amount of Azure resources and services that you have
contracted to use.
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Making deployments with Microsoft

Dynamics Lifecycle Services
Lifecycle Services (LCS) is an Azure-based, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering. However, deployment of Dynamics AX 2012
R3 environments using LCS utilizes separate Azure subscription and the IaaS facilities of Azure. LCS expedites the deployment
and also provides other facilities to operate and maintain your deployment, but it is not providing Dynamics AX 2012 R3 as a
software service. Rather, once Dynamics AX 2012 R3 is deployed, it runs on the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) virtual
hardware and networks of Azure, but must be operated and maintain by your IT staff as if it were an on-premises deployment.
- Demo Environment
- Developer/Test Environement

For details: Refer to

http://technet.microsoft.com/EN-US/library/dn741581.aspx
http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/cloud-services-how-tocreate-deploy/

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Considerations when deploying AX 2012 R3 on Azure

-

Azure is a deployment option for Dynamics AX 2012 R3; however, you do not have to deploy Dynamics AX
2012 R3 on Azure. You can deploy Dynamics AX 2012 R3 to your local on-premises network if you prefer.

There is no price difference for your Dynamics AX 2012 R3 licenses whether you are deploying Dynamics
AX 2012 R3 on Azure or deploying it on-premises. It is the same license for either deployment method.

When deploying Dynamics AX 2012 R3 on Azure, you are utilizing the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
capabilities of Microsofts cloud.

You will need your own Azure subscription

You will need to determine the different services including Compute, Data Services (which includes
storage), App Services, and Networking that your organization need .
Lifecycle services Cloud hosted environment tool is available to customer , or any registered partner so
need to verify whether can log on to LCS services.
Purchase an Azure Subscription , support plan, and get familiar with Azure management portal.
Understand the billing process
Consider legal and regulatory requirements.

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