Aligning Your Strategy to Microsoft New Upgrade Choices Aligning Your Strategy to Microsoft

Your speaker Jon Long Director ArcherPoint Upgrades

Session Objectives What will you learn today? The path to the future with Business Central How future architecture will help realize upgrades with less cost and disruption. What you can do now to start your path to the future

Session Agenda Q&A for you and me Talk about future in a conceptually technical way Brief history of Navision NAV and BC Discuss technology used to get to the future Describe basecamp to Mt. Everest Q&A for you

So, it looks like it’s time to upgrade

Where have we come from (NAV architecture)? Old Classic NAV C/side databases (instead of SQL) RTC conversion (from Classic NAV) 3 tier architecture Pages (from Forms) XMLports (from Dataports) RDLC Reports (from Classic Reports) Next big jump >>> Events / Extensions

Dynamics 365 Business Central Deployment Options Option 1: Business Central SaaS – This deployment option involves deploying Business Central on Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 Platform where Microsoft manages the entire backend infrastructure related to the deployment. Option 2: Business Central Azure – This deployment option involves deploying Business Central in a partner or client managed Azure instance using Azure SQL. Option 3: Business Central Hosted – This deployment option involves deploying Business Central in a third-party hosted environment. Option 4: Business Central on Premises – This deployment option involves deploying Business Central on a physical server or in a virtualized environment that is managed and maintained by the client.

Dynamics 365 BC Deployment Options

Dynamics 365 BC Deployment Options OnPrem Business Central

Dynamics 365 BC Deployment Options OnPrem Business Central Cloud Cloud Brick and Mortar

Dynamics 365 BC Deployment Options OnPrem Business Central Cloud Cloud Cloud Brick and Mortar

Dynamics 365 BC Deployment Options SaaS The Future OnPrem Business Central Cloud Cloud Cloud Brick and Mortar

Why Does BC Matter? Upgrades, upgrades, upgrades…… What impact does this have on my upgrades? Less cost Less disruption Shorter upgrade projects Less risk of breakage Continuous improvement

Everest Base Camp is essentially the bottom of the top of the world.

Think of Business Central On-Prem as Base Camp to Saas

D365 BC SaaS – In the Cloud D365 BC Base Camp OnPrem

What is an Event? Hooks that act as interfaces in base code Events are published by the vendor (MicroSoft, ISV’s) Events are subscribed to by Customer mod’s Events allow customization independency Events are subscribed to from “subscription” codeunits

Why should I care about Events for Upgrades? Events allow zero merge cost Events allow zero merge time Independency reduces risk of breakage Get’s us closer to continuous improvement

What happens after Events? All Evented code will transition from C/AL to AL. All AL will be packaged as Extensions

What are Extensions and why should I care? Extensions are “packages” of Evented AL code that layer on top of BC/NAV like layers of an onion. It sits on top of NAV like a downloadable app that also interacts with NAV, but does not have it’s mod's sitting inside of NAV. Extensions can contain one or many objects and functionality Extensions can be thoughtfully detangled mod’s

What are my next steps to an upgrade? Upgrade to to BC (or Nav2018). This will give the most access to Events and allow you to change mod's over to Events. If not fully using Events, this will allow client to morph over to that in the BC/2018 versions. ISV add-ons need to be publishing their add-ons as fully Evented.

D365 BC SaaS – In the Cloud Event and De-Couple Code D365 BC Base Camp OnPrem

What are the exceptions to full Eventing? If an ISV add-on is not fully evented Mod's inside/tied to add-on’s cannot be Evented. Wait for ISV to update their code using events If base NAV does not have an event to support a mod Come up with a different way of performing that mod. Anti Patterns Commented out base code .NET calls

Exceptions Out of Customers Control Table schema has exceeded the 8kb allowed by SQL Consider Hybrid AL/CAL (next slides) ISV has a BC SaaS version of their product that is not compatible with OnPrem BC Ask vendor for source code

When to Extend? Last It depends

D365 BC SaaS – In the Cloud Wait for ISV’s to Release Extensions Event and De-Couple Code D365 BC Base Camp OnPrem

Consider an Incremental Methodology Event what is touched Merge conflicts Customizations Bug fixes Small and frequent scheduled releases Extensions only when necessary Hybrid AL/CAL may be required

When is Hybrid AL/CAL Table Schema limit exceeds 8kb MS has taken up all the table real estate Adding an ISV table exceeds the 8KB ISV has only an Extension version of their product and Customer has mod’s to product No other reason

Why is Hybrid AL/CAL a Sensitive Topic? AL cannot be “seen” by CAL AL and CAL in the same system may be more difficult to maintain, especially with many developers It’s not considered “best practice”

D365 BC SaaS – In the Cloud Customizations to Extensions Wait for ISV’s to Release Extensions Event and De-Couple Code D365 BC Base Camp OnPrem

Your Fully Evented, Extended and Your ISV’s are Too….Now What?

Is There an Upgrade Path to SaaS?

Upgrade to SaaS D365 Business Central Start from OnPrem D365 BC ( All Customs/ISV’s Extensions )

Run Replication Now

Run Replication Now

Replication D365 BC – SaaS D365 BC – OnPrem

Replication D365 BC – SaaS NAV 2018– OnPrem

D365 BC SaaS – In the Cloud Replicate Customizations to Extensions Wait for ISV’s to Release Extensions Event and De-Couple Code D365 BC Base Camp OnPrem

Replications Ramifications Replication requires that both the SaaS DB and OnPrem schema are the same (From NAV 2018 is an exception) Replication may take days, weeks or months GoLive can only happen when the Delta is able to replicate in hours. GoLive on OnPrem D365 is virtually inevitable

GoLive on SaaS #D365BC Replicate Customizations to Extensions Wait for ISV’s to Release Extensions Event and De-Couple Code D365 BC Base Camp OnPrem

Upgrade to OnPrem D365Business Central OnPrem D365 BC is the base camp to the Summit

Upgrade to OnPrem D365Business Central OnPrem D365 BC is the base camp to the Summit OnPrem is where you can prepare for the ultimate leap to SaaS

Upgrade to OnPrem D365Business Central OnPrem D365 BC is the base camp to the Summit OnPrem is where you can prepare for the ultimate leap to SaaS Events

Upgrade to OnPrem D365Business Central OnPrem D365 BC is the base camp to the Summit OnPrem is where you can prepare for the ultimate leap to SaaS Events Extensions

Upgrade to OnPrem D365Business Central OnPrem D365 BC is the base camp to the Summit OnPrem is where you can prepare for the ultimate leap to SaaS Events Extensions Abandon the desktop client and start getting used to the new Modern Client

Upgrade to OnPrem D365Business Central OnPrem D365 BC is the base camp to the Summit OnPrem is where you can prepare for the ultimate leap to SaaS Events Extensions Abandon the desktop client and start getting used to the new Modern Client Evaluate dependencies that are not compatible with SaaS, SSRS queries, Jet Reports, ISV’s that are not on Extensions yet

Upgrade to OnPrem D365Business Central OnPrem D365 BC is the base camp to the Summit OnPrem is where you can prepare for the ultimate leap to SaaS Events Extensions Abandon the desktop client and start getting used to the new Modern Client Evaluate dependencies that are not compatible with SaaS, SSRS queries, Jet Reports, ISV’s that are not on Extensions yet And Finally…Replicate to SaaS

Suggested Resources For Business Users For Administrators For Developers Self Help & Support Performance improvements Server improvements Jon's Blogs

Questions?

Thank You!