Architecture

Sure Step in action: Architecture Assessment

by Vjekoslav Babic on January 29, 2009

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.

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Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 Is Here

by Vjekoslav Babic on November 19, 2008

!!! 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.

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The Sure Step Rule of Taxi Fare

by Vjekoslav Babic on October 12, 2008

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.

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Architectures: Good, Bad and Ugly

by Vjekoslav Babic on June 11, 2008

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.

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WinDays 2008: Aftermath

by Vjekoslav Babic on April 29, 2008

WinDays 2008 are over. Somehow, this conference has become a milestone, in Croatian ICT community, in Microsoft community, even in my life. I met a friend there, one of those I only meet there, and realized just how quickly the year turned. Obviously, I contemplated too much, and partied too little, something to really get worried about.

Anyway, the presentations I delivered made me think about the future of this blog. It started pretty randomly, as a place where I simply dumped anything that crossed my mind, so you had all sorts of content, from programming, to development, to functionality, to theory. When I look at my blog to-do list, there is even more chaos to it, with topics ranging from SQL optimization all the way to business process reengineering. I realized I need more focus. [click to continue reading…]

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Native vs. SQL: The Delta

March 2, 2008

Early versions of SQL Server option for Microsoft Dynamics NAV (then called Navision) didn’t scale up as high as one would expect. Although SQL Server itself could scale up to thousands and tens of thousands of concurrent users, running a production environment of an ERP system is way different from running generic lab tests. SQL Server [...]

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Native vs. SQL: The Evolution

February 29, 2008

One of the choices a customer interested in Microsoft Dynamics NAV must definitely make is the choice of the database platform. With NAV, there are two possible options: so called native database server, which is not really officially called that (the official name is Microsoft Dynamics™ NAV Database Server), and Microsoft SQL Server.

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Techno stuff

June 20, 2007

Tons of documents exist about Microsoft Dynamics NAV, but most of them start with marketing lingo, and don’t wander away too much from it altogether. While it is nice to know that it is a system which will give you freedom to focus on your business, it is also nice to know what is it [...]

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