This year my work got a better of me. For five years in a row I have posted all my demos and materials from NAV TechDays sessions right after them. However, this year, I failed. And I apologize for this.
But, as the saying goes, good things come to those who wait, and here it is – all the materials from my “JavaScript Architecture: Turning Pain into Gain” session are here.
Implementing a new Microsoft Dynamics solution doesn’t merely introduce a new piece of software into your environment. Yes, the software is an important part, you need to deploy it successfully, configure it as necessary, probably even customize it and change the business logic under the hood.
One component, however, is easily overlooked, and you wouldn’t believe how often it’s not addressed until late. Or too late. It’s the infrastructure.
Infrastructure is tough. It’s not just servers and desktops with some wires, switches and access points in between. Its a lot more. What kind of hardware do you need for your servers or desktops? What kind of performance do you really need? What kind of network layout is optimal for your transaction volume? Should you run the client on desktop machines, or would a remote desktop access be a preferred method? Do you virtualize your servers? What kind of failover capacities do you need? Can you retain any of your old hardware? How many users will use the system? Tomorrow? In five years? What about interfaces and integration to other systems or applications?
A couple of wrong answers, and down you go.
!!! Check out my book Implementing Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 !!!
The long awaited Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 has been released for download earlier this week, and has just been publicly announced at Convergence 2008 Copenhagen. If you have PartnerSource access, you can download Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 here.
This one is the most important release of Microsoft Dynamics NAV ever, as it brings a completely new architecture, a shiny new user interface, web-services enablement and much more.
Some time back, as I was riding a taxi from Prague airport to Holiday Inn hotel, I wondered about the fixed price I was about to pay for the ride.
– “Airport to city is 700 flat.” – said the driver when I asked how much approximately will it cost.
Common wisdom goes that flat rates mean you get it worse than if it wasn’t flat. Indeed, if it was on meter, and if the driver took the shortest route (I had a GPS device on me, I could’ve easily checked it!), the fare would’ve been lower. And yet, I decided I loved the flat rate.
Four months ago I attended a conference, where I had a chance to listen to Miha Kralj, an architect at Microsoft, talk about architectures. It was one of the best presentations I ever attended, and ever since I had this topic in queue, but never really had chance to write about it. Most of the stuff he talked about reminded me of some bad experiences about architectures on projects I’ve worked on. Most of stuff here is also not my original contribution to the universal pool of knowledge, and I reuse it with the permission of the author, so Miha, thanks! What I did, however, is that I applied general principles to specific Microsoft Dynamics NAV situations.