Question - How to Scale out AIF WebServices via Load Balancer

We have a load-balanced environment where we have 6 AOSServers in a clustered environment each hosting AIF Webservices on IIS.


The Load Balancer is basically a virtual IP which routes the requests to the 6 AOS Servers depending on the load. Now, when we try to consume the AIF Services hosted on the 6 boxes through the Load Balancer, the request doesn't go through, but when we try to consume the AIF Services directly from one of the 6 boxes, it works fine.


How do we make the request work through the load balancer? Anyone has any ideas or experienced this before, Please post your comments. Thanks.

P.S - Googled it, and this link at the end talks about the inherent limitation which AIF WebSercvice has as it has 1:1 relationship with the IIS website http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/32946372/aif-web-services-ax2009--scaling-out.aspx

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 – Can Microsoft’s Largest ERP Release Take on SAP

This morning I got an email from Derek Singleton, ERP Analyst from Software Advice requesting me to publish this video interview on my blog.

The CEO of Software Advice interviewed Microsoft’s Director of ERP Marketing, Guy Weismantel and he talks about the latest updates to the Dynamics ERP product line.

Over the next two weeks, 7 videos, would be published each centered on one question about Dynamics ERP offerings.






 “What’s new in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012?” http://www.softwareadvice.com/articles/enterprise/microsoft-dynamics-ax-2012-can-microsoft%E2%80%99s-largest-erp-release-take-on-sap-1022111/.






In brief, this video talks about :

* 2012 one of the Biggest Release of Dynamics AX ERP Product Line
* 1200+ New Features
* Lot of new functionality
* New way to use Business Apps
* General Availability is Q3 2011



Watch out for the next footage/video which talks about: “Can Microsoft Dynamics ERP move to the cloud?”

Dynamics AX 2009 Role Center Migration Issues

In our Project, we have around 40 approx. custom role center pages and we have to often do a deployment from DEV to other environments. In this process the web part pages come up, but the Quick Links don't turn up properly.



DEV

This is how the role center page looks in DEV

UAT (After Migration) – This is how it looks like after we migrate, The issues here are:

1. My Reports Label Description coming as "Quick Links Web Part[1]"
   
2. All the Links in My Reports not showing up after migration
   
3. My Links Label Description coming as "Quick Links Web Part[2]"
   
4. Desktop Links (hidden) ones not getting migrated properly to UAT
   

 
Migration Process: (These are the steps carried out to migrate the role center page from DEV)

1. Export Page Definition and Web Menu Url for the specific Role Center Page from AOT > Web > Page Definitions
   
2. Import Page Definition into UAT
   
3. Deploy Page Definition from UAT
   
4. Export Cues and Links by choosing the option Export to AOT
   
5. Export the whole Cues and Link from AOT as xpo
   
6. Import the Cues and Link from AOT
   
7. IISReset in UAT
   

Please note that I'm using axupdateportalutility when we have to do a full migration but for partial migration like one or two role center pages we follow the above steps. Even when I do an axupdateportalutility for full migration, still we have these issues of missing links.

 

The current workaround for this is either to go manually and add the links in each environment or I usually write a sql script which updates the sysquicklinks table at the database level.

Does anyone else facing the same issue and how to resolve it in AX way? Any responses appreciated.

 

Dynamics AX 2012 Presentation by Gary Holsopple at AXUG Ohio

Gary Holsopple, Sr. Systems Architect at Vita-Mix have made an excellent summarized presentation on Dynamics AX 2012 @ Ohio Ax User Group.

Thought to share it over here..http://prezi.com/cbfqxydd2f_c/axug-ax2012/

Thanks to Gary for the cool presentation on Dynamics AX 2012.

Scheduling a Batch Job through code, Batch Multithreading and creating batch tasks at run time

Last few days, I was bit busy exploring and experimenting with Batch  Jobs and multithreading as we need to load balance these jobs on our 6 AOS Servers to get the maximum performance out of them

Thought to share the following links available on msdn and Klaas blog.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc636647.aspx


http://www.artofcreation.be/2010/10/03/batch-multithreading/

DynamicsWorld Nominations for the "Top 100 Most Influential People in Microsoft Dynamics"

DynamicsWorld Nominations for the "Top 100 Most Influential People in Microsoft Dynamics"

Here's an opportunity to nominate and vote for whom you think has an influence/impact in Dynamics ERP World. This polling is conducted by Dynamics World, UK.

Read about it more here... http://www.dynamicsworld.co.uk/2011-Top-100-Nominations.php

New Dynamics AX Book - Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 Administration

Dynamics AX 2009 Administration Book - A new book by Marco, Packt Publishers.

Thanks to Richard for forwarding me a copy of the book to review. I will be posting my comments once I review it.
Thought to share with you the link so that you can have a look at the topics covered and also download a free chapter

Dynamics AX 2009 Administration Book


Will soon be posting my review comments, Watch for this space

Troubleshooting Dynamics AX 2009 EP Thread abort Exception Error

Issue:
We had this problem where all of a sudden some of the EP Users were not able to navigate through the EP pages.


Below is the snapshot of the error which comes up in the EP Page. Sharepoint as usual doesn't show informative/descriptive errors and it's quite difficult to debug sharepoint pages, so my next bet was to look into Event Viewer to get a more detailed description of the error.








Event Viewer Log:


Dynamics Object Adapter Call failed Thread was being aborted
System.Threading.ThreadAbortException
   at AxCore_Call(UInt64 , Char* , tagVARIANT* , Int32 , tagVARIANT* )
   at Microsoft.Dynamics.BusinessConnectorNet.AxaptaObject.Call(String methodName, Object[] paramList)
   at Microsoft.Dynamics.Framework.BusinessConnector.Session.DynamicsObjectAdapter.Call(String methodName)


Microsoft Dynamics AX Business Connector Session 444.

Thread was being aborted.
   at AxCore_Call(UInt64 , Char* , tagVARIANT* , Int32 , tagVARIANT* )
   at Microsoft.Dynamics.BusinessConnectorNet.AxaptaObject.Call(String methodName, Object[] paramList)


Session Release for Microsoft Dynamics failed.


No .NET Business Connector session could be found.


Microsoft.Dynamics.Framework.BusinessConnector.Session.Exceptions.NoKernelSessionException
   at Microsoft.Dynamics.Framework.BusinessConnector.Session.DynamicsSession.get_AxaptaAdapter()
   at Microsoft.Dynamics.Framework.Portal.AxWebSession.WebSessionClientRemove()
   at Microsoft.Dynamics.Framework.BusinessConnector.Session.DynamicsSession.Release(ICacheContext context)


Resolution


Fristly, I googled to see if somebody else has experienced similar error, found this link

 http://graycloud.com/axapta/enterprise-portal-failed-with-dynamics-net-business-connect-t51380.html,
it's the same issue but there's no solution.

I tried IISreset from the EP server but that didn't help. Opened AX and deleted the user cache but still this didn't help, finally had to delete and recreate the user to solve the problem, We are on the latest service pack and rollup 6 for Dynamics AX 2009 so I'm not sure if this is a bug which would be addressed in the future.