Pre-Requisites required to Setup Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Operations On Premise Edition

In this post, we are covering the pre-requisites required to setup Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise Edition on the Microsoft Azure Cloud.

Before highlighting the deployment steps, in detail, we will give you a brief overview what is Microsoft Dynamics 365 and the solutions that are available in Microsoft Dynamics 365. These solutions are possible in the cloud (Software as a service) and as an on-premise hybrid solution.

What is Microsoft Dynamics 365? 
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a line of integrated, adaptable, integrated business management solutions (ERP and CRM)  that integrates all facets of the business. It includes a range of business solutions as stated below, based on the industry the answer is catering to.

• Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales (formerly, known as Microsoft Dynamics CRM – available as a module)
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance And Operations, Enterprise Edition (formerly, known as Microsoft Dynamics Ax)
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Business Edition (formerly, known as Microsoft Dynamics NAV)
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Field Service (formerly, known as Microsoft Dynamics CRM – available as a module)
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Talent
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Retail
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Project Service Automation
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Marketing (formerly, known as Microsoft Dynamics CRM – available as a module, integrates with the Adobe cloud and as a solution, called Microsoft Dynamics Marketing)
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Insights

Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, On-Premise Deployment:
We need to use Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services to deploy and update an instance of Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise Edition. Before we get into the deployment steps, providing a brief overview of Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services.

What is Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services?
Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services (LCS) is an application lifecycle management ( applicable for Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise Edition application) service available on the cloud used to handle deployments, define project management methodologies, manage packages, database backup storage, handle platform upgrades,  and handle issue requests.

To access Lifecycle services go to https://lcs.dynamics.com/Logon/Index and in the documentation. The documentation and training videos for Lifecycle Services are available in the additional information section on the LCS home page.

Pre-Requisites required to Setup Microsoft Dynamics 365

The following are the pre-requisites to setup Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise Edition on the Microsoft Azure cloud.

• Pre-requisites:
  • An Azure Active Directory is a must to sign-in to LCS, and then the sign-up steps must be completed.
  • We need to provision or create an On-Premise project. Two environments are provisioned in there, one is a sandbox environment, and the other one is a production environment. This will enable and guarantee that the packages in the sandbox environment before they are applied in the production environment.

Setup Components for Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise Edition On-Premise: 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise Edition On-Premise consists of three components.

• Application Object Server (AOS)  (Used to facilitate communication between the database and the application and run batch operations, import and export services)
• Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (Used to run reports hosted on Microsoft SQL server 2014 or 2016 reporting services platform)
• Management Reporter (MR)/Financial reporting (Used to run financial reporting)
• Environment Orchestrator (Middleware used to run and manage on-premise deployments for Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise Edition)

The other critical components required to deploy Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise Edition, includes the following:

• Microsoft Azure subscription
• Self-signed certificate to be hosted on Azure
• Access to Dynamics Deployment Service and assign a service account to run this service on Azure. This service will deploy the Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise Edition virtual machine with Azure service fabric standalone cluster service on the Microsoft Azure platform. The Dynamics deployment service will provision the service account to deploy the Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise Edition virtual machine from Lifecycle services on Microsoft Azure.

Other components that are required in addition to the three parts include the following:

• Elements needed
  –          Windows Server 2016
  –          SQL Server 2016 with SP1
  –          SSRS deployed on BI Virtual machines
  –          SSIS deployed on AOS Virtual machines
  –          SQL Server Management Studio
  –          ADDS on Windows Server 2016
  –          Microsoft Azure Service Fabric standalone
  –          Windows Powershell 5.0 or more
• Domain-controller must be Windows Server 2012 R2 or later and must have functional domain level must be Windows Server 2012-R2 or later.
• Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services projects with project owner or environment manager roles assigned. 
• Azure Service fabric standalone cluster
• Microsoft SQL Server clustered and always on supported
• An ADFS for authentication.
• Server message block 3.0 (SMB) for sharing and storing unstructured data.
• Microsoft Office Server 2017.
• SQL Server full-text index searching is enabled.  Windows Powershell 5.0.

In the next article, I will explain the steps to setup Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise Edition/Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Operations On-Premise. Ensure that above pre-requisite components are ready to ensure a smooth deployment from LCS to Azure.

Abbreviations:

• ERP = Enterprise Resource Planning
• CRM = Customer Relationship Management
• LCS = Lifecycle Services

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