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

2. Your speaker
Jon Long
Director
ArcherPoint Upgrades

3. 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

4. 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

5. So, it looks like it’s time to upgrade

8. 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

9. 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.

10. Dynamics 365 BC Deployment Options

11. Dynamics 365 BC Deployment Options
OnPrem Business Central

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

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

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

18. 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

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

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

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

22. 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

23. 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

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

25. 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

26. 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.

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

28. 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

29. 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

30. When to Extend?
Last
It depends

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

32. 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

33. 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

34. 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”

35. 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

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

37. Is There an Upgrade Path to SaaS?

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

39. Run Replication Now

40. Run Replication Now

41. Replication
D365 BC – SaaS
D365 BC – OnPrem

42. Replication
D365 BC – SaaS
NAV 2018– OnPrem

43. 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

44. 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

45. 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

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

47. 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

48. 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

49. 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

50. 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

51. 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

52. 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

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

55. Questions?

56. Thank You!