My Experience about Configuring Dynamics AX 2009 VM on Hyper-V

Hi there, Just wanted to share my recent experience about configuring Hyper-V and creating a new VM to run Dynamics AX on it. This was done for one of our DEV Environments.
Q What is Hyper-V/Virtualization technology?
A In simple terms, Virtualization enables multiple Operating Systems to run concurrently on single machine. Some of the key benefits which virtualization provides -

• Server Consolidation
• Consolidation of DEV and TEST Environments
• Legacy applications re-hosting... etc

Coming to Hyper-V, it's a feature of Windows Server 2008 (x64 bit) provided by Microsoft for enabling scalable, reliable and highly available virtualization platform.

To know more about Hyper-V and Virtualization, I would recommend you to go through the below links
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/hyperv-faq.aspx
http://www.hyper-green.com/?CR_TC=9OSUHTJ8BB2INOT

Ok, now let me quickly jump to the configuration and setting up of Hyper-V. One of the key pre-requisite is to have a Windows Server 2008 (x64-bit) OS running and configure your BIOS to enable virtualization - I learned this the hard way out :-), had to spend some time understanding this till I got enlightened from this great blog by Rob who has put up some great videos about How-to Configure Hyper-V and create VM's. Great work there!

So, once you are on your Windows Server 2008 x-64 bit OS, here are the steps which you need to follow

a. Configure the BIOS for Hyper-V

http://ts2blogs.com/blogs/rwagg/archive/2009/04/13/so-you-want-to-get-started-with-hyper-v-start-here-part-1.aspx

b. Installing the Hyper-V role

http://ts2blogs.com/blogs/rwagg/archive/2009/04/14/so-you-want-to-get-started-with-hyper-v-start-here-part-2.aspx

c. Setting up a Virtual Machine Network

http://ts2blogs.com/blogs/rwagg/archive/2009/04/15/so-you-want-to-get-started-with-hyper-v-start-here-part-3.aspx

d. Creating a VM

http://ts2blogs.com/blogs/rwagg/archive/2009/02/28/how-to-setup-a-virtual-machine-in-windows-server-2008.aspx

So, these are the basic steps you need to follow to configure your Hyper-V and get your first Virtual Machine running. I was lucky as I had already got a pre-configured virtual hard disk running Windows Server 2003. So, I just needed to bring the virtual machine to the network and then start installing SQL and AX on it.

Next - will soon blog about my experience configuring Clustered VM's. Till then, Happy Virtualizaing... :-)

Installation Sequence for Dynamics AX 2009 Reporting, Analysis and EP Stack

Recently, I have been building Dynamics AX 2009 Components topologies for our DEV/TEST/UAT and PROD Environments, and I learnt that following this sequence of
installation might be helpful for all

Bing!!!! The new buzzword which redefines search on the web

Check it out!!! WorldWide Release on June 3rd.....

http://www.bing.com/

Microsoft Corp. unveiled Bing, a new Decision Engine. Bing provides customers with an experience beyond search to help make faster and more informed decisions. Bing is designed to build on the benefits of today’s search engines but moves beyond this experience with a new approach to user experience and intuitive tools to help customers make better decisions. It will initially focus on four key vertical areas: making a purchase decision, planning a trip, researching a health condition or finding a local business

· Bing is a decision engine. It cuts through Internet clutter and intelligently displays a range of information to help people make decisions faster.
· Research shows searches are becoming more complex as people use the web for making important decisions in areas like shopping, travel, health and local. Today’s release is a big leap forward in addressing the needs of consumers who require more than simple information retrieval.

Deploy First Azure Application

Now Let's Deploy this Application to Cloud. Right click on the FirstCloudApp project and select Publish from the context menu

\

Once the publish process is complete, Visual Studio will open the directory where the service package was created and It will also launch the default browser and navigate to the Azure Services developer portal

Click on the New Project Link and then Click on Hosted Services Project

Give the project a name and click Next

Specify a sub-domain for the app. In this CTP, this is hosted on cloudapp.net domain.

Click on Deploy to start Staging

Browse to the path where the package and configuration files were earlier published from Visual Studio. Provide a label for deployment and then click Deploy, This will upload the package and configuration files to Azure Services portal

At this stage, you can click the Run button to start up the virtual instances for each webrole. Once the instances are started, the package i.e assemblies, ASPX pages which we uploaded earlier will be deployed

Now, you can see the status changing from Allocated to Initializing

Now, at this stage both the roles are started.

Now, Click on Sync button to promote the app from Staging to Production

Now, We can see the Production Environment is started and this completes the entire process of deployment. And, voila your application is hosted in the cloud :-), You can browse the website URL.

Steps for Developing First Cloud Service with Azure

A Step-by-Step Approach for Developing your first Azure hosted service

Once you install the Azure SDK or Developer Tools for Azure, when you launch Visual Studio 2008, you should be able to a new project type called “Cloud Service” and within it the templates for Cloud Projects.

For the current scenario, we will use “Web Cloud Service” template as shown here

In the Solution Explorer, one can find 2 types of projects one is the FirstCloudApp_Webrole which is the standard ASP.Net Project and the other one is Cloud Service Project.

Now, create a standard ASP.Net label control in Default.aspx (design view) Go to the code view, and in the Page_Load event and put some code to display the label text

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

this.Label1.Text = "Hello Azure, I'm on Cloud 9 - Dilip";

}

Go to CloudService Project, Open the ServiceConfiguration.cscfg file (This file defines the roles and also defines the number of instances per role.) Let’s make it to 2.

<Role name="WebRole">

<Instances count="2"/>

<ConfigurationSettings>

</ConfigurationSettings>

</Role>

Now, Let’s start the application in Debug Mode. (F5)

I encountered this error before it could go any further.

Solution -

Azure seems to be configured to SQL Express in CTP. This needs to be changed to SQL server 2005 connection string.
I did a change in DevelopmentStorage.exe.config located at C:\Program Files\Windows Azure SDK\v1.0\bin
connectionString="Data Source=localhost;Initial Catalog=DevelopmentStorageDb;Integrated Security=True"
providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />

Since, I already have the full version of SQL Server 2005 on my system, I modified the above connection string to point it to the local instance of SQL Server.

Now, again Press F5 and this time the development storage got initialized successfully as shown here -

You will notice the Development Fabric icon on the status bar, shown below, Click on that and Development Fabric window opens

Development Fabric

· Once the devfabric starts, it expand the HelloAzure application in the devfabric and expand the WebRole

· This will cause the ASP.NET project to be compiled into a .NET assembly, just as normal. · However, since we have a Cloud Service project in our solution, this will then start the Windows Azure Development Fabric.

· The Development Fabric, or simple devfabric, is a simulated environment for developing and testing Windows Azure applications on your machine.

What you need to Get Started on Windows Azure?

Pre-Requisites - Passion to be on the cloud :-)
Ok, Let's get into the business.
Here is how your machine should be setup before you start developing for Windows Azure -

• Should be running Windows Server 2008
• Should have Visual Studio 2008 SP1
• Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio (March 2009)/Windows Azure SDK (March 2009) http://www.microsoft.com/azure/windowsazurefordevelopers/Default.aspx?path=DownloadToolsBtn
• You need to have a Windows Azure developer account. To create a developer account, you need to sign-up for an invitation code and redeem the invitation code on the Azure Services Developer Portal located at: https://lx.azure.microsoft.com/

Also, dont miss some Getting Started Videos here - http://www.microsoft.com/azure/windowsazurefordevelopers/default.aspx

Developed and Hosted First Cloud Applicaton using Windows Azure

Hi there, I hosted my First Cloud Service on Windows Azure and here it is.
http://dilipsfirstapp.cloudapp.net/
This is a basic hosted service which just displays a static text. Back to my C days - "Hello World", now its "Hello Azure" :-)

Development, Configuration and Deployment took me around 50 mins. In a series of blog, I will try to cover the necessary steps to Develop and Deploy a basic hosted service on Cloud.

Dynamics AX 2009 Enterprise Portal Development Recording on Channel 9

http://blogs.msdn.com/epblog/archive/2009/05/20/dynamics-ax-enterprise-portal-development-webinar-recording.aspx

Step-by-Step Approcah on Creating SSRS Report

Here are some great blog posts by Saveen, on creating SSRS Reports and consuming cubes. Thanks for putting it up.

http://blogs.msdn.com/saveenr/archive/2008/10/24/dynamics-ax-2009-creating-a-simple-ssrs-report.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/saveenr/archive/2008/11/05/dynamics-ax-2009-creating-an-ssrs-2008-report-that-gets-data-from-an-ax-cube.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/saveenr/archive/2008/11/02/dynamics-ax-2009-ad-hoc-analysis-using-excel-2007-to-get-data-from-an-ax-olap-cube.aspx

Inside Dynamics AX 2009 Book RTM'd

RTM’d today: Inside Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009
http://blogs.msdn.com/microsoft_press/archive/2009/05/20/rtm-d-today-inside-microsoft-dynamics-ax-2009.aspx

TinyURL.com

Here, is a great website which I came across which shortens the URL e.g.
e.g. this is PartnerSource login - https://login.live.com/login.srf?wa=wsignin1.0&rpsnv=10&ct=1242704379&rver=5.5.4177.0&wp=MBI_SSL&wreply=https:%2F%2Fmbs.microsoft.com%2FCms%2FTemplates%2Fsite%2FUtilityPlus.aspx%3FNRMODE%3DPublished%26NRNODEGUID%3D%7B883335E9-E068-458F-8D10-04D39EE598EA%7D%26NRORIGINALURL%3D%2FPartnerSource%2F%26NRCACHEHINT%3DGuest&lc=1033&id=44542

After converting it using tinyurl,
http://tinyurl.com/qxbura

Try it now!

Download Visual Studio 2010 Beta and .Net Framework 4.0

Visual Studio 2010 and .Net Framework 4.0 is available for download from the following link
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/downloads/default.aspx?pv=18:370

Troubleshooting Dynamics AX 2009 Enterprise Portal installation in a distributed topology

I was involved in setting up EP and Workflow on our Production boxes this weekend. This is a distributed environment where we have IIS/EP, AOS and SQL Server on different boxes. Had completed MOSS configuration without any glitch, but while installing EP and Role centers, I went through a sequence of issues. My EP and Role center installation got completed with warnings, but the website was not coming up. The errors in Event viewer and the log file were -
"“Faulting application w3wp.exe, version 6.0.3790.3959, stamp 45d6968e, faulting module kernel32.dll, version 5.2.3790.4062, stamp 46264680, debug?”

An error occured while Setup was creating a new site.
The underlying connection was closed: An unexpected error occurred on a receive.
System.Net.WebException
at System.Web.Services.Protocols.WebClientProtocol.GetWebResponse(WebRequest request)
at System.Web.Services.Protocols.HttpWebClientProtocol.GetWebResponse(WebRequest request)
at System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapHttpClientProtocol.Invoke(String methodName, Object[] parameters)
at Microsoft.Dynamics.Framework.Deployment.Portal.WSSAdmin.CreateSite(String Url, String Title, String Description, Int32 Lcid, String WebTemplate, String OwnerLogin, String OwnerName, String OwnerEmail, String PortalUrl, String PortalName)
at Microsoft.Dynamics.Framework.Deployment.Portal.EPDeployment.CreateDefaultEPSite(String virtualServerUrl)
Unable to read data from the transport connection: An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host.
An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host
API return status: Warning
Leaving function

Solution - After spending hours of troubleshooting, later learnt the hard way from the below post that we have to install SQL Server 2005 Client Tools on the IIS/EP box if EP is running in a distributed environment.
Thanks to Arijit for putting up this great post!!
https://community.dynamics.com/forums/t/13636.aspx

No items or websites in IIS

Problem - Sometimes you get this weird behaviour in IIS 6.0, suddenly you see there are no websites or no items to be displayed. It will show a message saying "there are no items to be shown"

Solution - Go to command prompt and do an iisreset,
and this will bring back the websites. Try with iisreset/noforce first so that
it wont affect the sites running, if it doesn't work, then go for
iisreset

MCBMSP Dynamics AX 2009 (Developer track)

Just passed Morphx Solution Development Exam today. Now, I'm MCBMSP in Dynamics AX 2009 (Developer track). Completed all core exams and the elective ones
- Development Introduction (Core)
- MorhphX Solution Development (Core)
- Enterprise Portal Development (Elective)
- Installation & Configuration (Elective)

Best Definition of ERP Contest on TEC (Technology Evaluation)

ERP is a term that represents the sum total of activities involved in the planning of the resources of an enterprise. Nowadays these activities are frequently supported by the use of integrated computer systems which when operating together can be considered as a single “ERP” system

Read more here......
http://blog.technologyevaluation.com/blog/2009/05/06/and-the-real-erp-is%e2%80%a6/#more-468

Troubleshooting Error while deploying Dynamics AX 2009 ODC files on Windows Server 2008

I'm trying to setup Dynamics AX 2009 Analysis Extensions on Windows Server 2008. Ran into the following error when, deploying ODC files step -

An error occurred while retrieving information from a SQL Server
Analysis Services component. A process failed while creating ODC files. View
the Windows event logs for more details.

Workaround - Try doing an iisreset after attempting to deploy your ODC files. Then, after iisreset is successful, attempt to deploy your ODC files again.

Thanks to Bill for posting this here in the communities forum, but I sound this behaviour sort of strange, maybe there would be a fix soon by MS.

P.S - https://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.axapta&tid=ace277e6-a967-4550-b1b4-f1cacd3d5e10&cat=en_US_c19bf0af-8048-4074-a429-02d7e737ea49&lang=en&cr=US&sloc=&p=1

Configure IIS 6.0 Management Compatibility when Installing EP for Dynamics AX 2009 on Windows Server 2008

Here are the steps if IIS 6.0 Management Compatibility is not configured for your IIS 7.0 running on Win Server 2008.

1. Click Start, click Administrative Tools and then Server Manager.
2. In the left navigation pane, expand Roles, and then right-click Web Server (IIS) and select Add Role Services.
3. On the Select Role Services pane, scroll down to IIS 6 Management Compatibility.
4. Select the check boxes for IIS 6 Metabase Compatibility and IIS 6 Management Console.
5. Click Next from the Select Role Services pane, and then click Install at the Confirm Installations Selections pane.
6.Click Close to leave the Add Role Services wizard.

Troubleshooting Enterprise Portal Installation Dynamics AX 2009

When, you are not connected to a network and try to install EP and Role Center, you may get the following error. Attached Screenshot


















Solution - Connect your system to the network and there you go.. :-)

Dynamics AX Event

Posting on demand from one of my fellow blogger friend :-)

Microsoft Dynamics™ AX Executive Briefing- Bloomington, MN on May 20, 2009, to learn how you can benefit from Microsoft Dynamics AX! . You'll get a chance to hear Kirill Tatarinov (Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Business Solutions) share his worldwide vision about the future impact of business applications and Microsoft’s role in an ever-challenging economic environment. Here is link for more information http://www.interdynbmi.com/news_events/MicrosoftDynamicsAXEvent.htm

Troubleshooting Dynamics AX 2009 Reporting Extensions Installation error on SQL Server 2008

Problem - While installing Dynamics AX 2009 Reporting Extensions on SQL Server 2008, you might run into the following error - "You must install SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services Service Pack 2 before installing the reporting extensions". Look at the Screenshot below










Solution -

1. Locate the AX Reporting services dll from the extracted AX 2009 SP1 folder [\\AX2009SP1\support\axsetupresources\microsoft.dynamics.setup.reportingservices.dll;File Version - 5.0.1000.52]

2. Copy the microsoft.dynamics.setup.reportingservices.dll into the folder: \\DynamicsAX\Msi\Components32\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics AX\50\Setup [since my system is 32-bit so Components32]

3. It will ask to replace the existing dll having File Version - 5.0.593.0. Say Yes and replace. Now, carry on with the installation process.




Please read this post for further information and thanks to the poster for the steps - http://community.dynamics.com/forums/t/12322.aspx

SQL Server version @@ version

A handy query to let you know the version with the service pack of the SQL Server you are running.

Just log on to the instance, open the query editor and run this query

select @@version

Output -
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 (RTM) - 10.0.1600.22 (Intel X86) Jul 9 2008 14:43:34 Copyright (c) 1988-2008 Microsoft Corporation Enterprise Edition on Windows NT 6.0 (Build 6001: Service Pack 1)

sys.database_files to query database metadata

Looking to query database metadata info like files, physical path, size, state etc. then you should try querying sys.database_files table.
It will retreive the information relating to the current database from where you are querying (Assuming here that you are using Query Editor)
select * from sys.database_files
Here, size is returned in 8 KB page
To convert the size into MB's, one can use this query
select (size*1.0/128),* from sys.database_files
More info regarding this table and fields would be found at the following msdn link http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms174397(SQL.90).aspx

Reporting Extensions Checklist for Dynamics AX 2009

Workflow Setup Checklist for Dynamics AX 2009

My blog on Microsoft Communities website

My blog is now listed on Microsoft Dynamics Communities website. Here you can find other great AX blogs too -

https://community.dynamics.com/content/relatedcommunities.aspx