March 18-21, 2013New Orleans

#conv13

Upgrading to Microsoft Dynamics® AX 2012Andrew Jewsbury – Senior Program Manager - MicrosoftKevin Kidder – Principal Escalation Engineer - MicrosoftAndré Vargas – Creative Artists Agency

DDAX03

March 18-21, 2013New Orleans

Session objectives and takeawaysWhy• Most customers are just starting their upgrade project to Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012• Upgrade is not a one-click process! It is a true project with phases, budgets, risks and

deadlines

Understand• How to upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 with reduced business disruption and

cost

Learn• Key considerations for planning and executing a Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 upgrade• Best practices for a successful upgrade

See• Customer example

Upgrade projectoverview

Upgrade best practices

Customer example

Agenda

Upgrade project overview

Andrew Jewsbury – Senior Program Manager - Microsoft

Typical questions

What is the upgrade project value?What are my goals?

Goals and functional analysis

Plan Testing and GoLive Development

Upgrade project phases

GoalsDefine the customer’s benefits from the new version

Functional design must be approved by the customer

Functional data analysisUpgrade all ERP data to Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 or just a subset (master data and balances)?

What is the data volume and do you need it all?

Functional customization analysisWhat are the number and types of customization? Are they replaced? Should you re-implement or upgrade?

What partner (ISV/VAR) involvement do you need?

Functional company analysisHow many virtual companies are there and what are the data sharing goals?

Independent companies or cross-company?

Do you want to merge AX implementations or companies?

Goals and functional analysis

Significant functional changes

Organization structureDataAreaID is still used but relationships and data sharing are different

General ledger and financial dimensionsAccounts and dimensions merging, resolving conflicts

Ledger transactionsThere are six tables to substitute LedgerTrans

ProductsInventTable was used differently, ecoRes* table family is used for products/items

Main technical changesDatabase systems supportMicrosoft® SQL Server® 2008R2/2012 is supported, Oracle is not supported anymore

Tables relations and inheritanceRelations are moved on table level, tables support inheritance

PartitionsIsolates a number of legal entities

Application Integration Framework and Enterprise PortalRebuilt, partial migration is possible

Security based on rolesSecurity setup migration is not supported

Report engineSQL Server Reporting Services are used, X++ reports are not supported

Code storageCode is migrated in separate database *_model

InfrastructureRequirement has been changed significantly, with new components (Help Server, for example)

Main technical changes (continued)

Upgrade project plan - Sure Step

Upgrade project development optionsSource-to-target upgrade model• Upgrade from Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 or Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009• Parallel execution of data copy, data transformations and sync-on-the-fly to the target

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 system• Data transfer time limitation

In-place• A new upgrade approach to allow upgrade on existing source Microsoft Dynamics AX

2012 RTM system • Mostly technical upgrade

Restarting• Implementation with importing master data and balances• Functional design becomes more standard

Source-to-target versus in-place

Key differences

From Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0/2009 onlyNew hardwareBulk copy program (BCP)~2500 target scriptsCan upgrade into multiple partitionsFast database synchronization

Source-to-target

From Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 onlyExisting hardwareNo BCP~50 upgrade scriptsOnly upgrade into a single partitionLonger database synchronization

Upgrade in-place

Production Active on AX 3/AX 4

Production active on AX AX2009/

Ax4Preprocessing Data Copy Post

Processing

Production Active on AX

2009

Production Production

Downtime

Upgrade operations

100%

Downtime

Single user processing

Delta preprocessing

Production active on AX

2012

Live on production

Upgrade operations

80%

Upgrade operations

20%

Before NowSource-to-target

Do we have any limit

here?

In-placeCreate test

system

Create development

system

Upgrade customer

model

Test data upgrade

Upgrade production

system

Duplicate existing

production system to

create the test systemRun AX 2012

R2 setup on the test system

and backup

Duplicate test system to create the

development systemImport

prepared R2 ISV models into development

system

Upgrade the code in other

models for each higher

layerImport

upgraded model store into the test

system

Perform data upgrade on the

test system

Back up the database

Upgrade the core production

system

Upgrade other server

components and clients

Upgrade best practicesKevin Kidder – Principal Escalation Engineer - Microsoft

Planning and metadata

PlanningTechnical upgrade with no functional analysis significantly increases project riskMerging companies or splitting data should be done separately before upgradeDowntime window requirementsHardware and database server review and optimizationFunctional specifications for moving/deleting/changing of customizationsMetadataAlways follow the checklist stepsNever do preprocessing then import the AOD’s for code upgrade Never use xpo export/import for upgrades; if xpo absolutely

required, make sure you keep IDs Never delete Data Dictionary elements; use

SYSDeletedObjects If absolutely required only delete metadata on target SYSDeletedObjects62 is ONLY for In-place upgrade

Data upgrade

Scripts for data upgradeHow much upgrade script development is required?Consult with your VARs and ISVs to check if they have upgrade scripts in place As the overall project makes progress, code and data upgrade can complement each otherUpgrading reports can be used as a data-validation exercise

Data upgrade Always follow the checklist Perform Upgrade Readiness in production AFTER a successful

complete end to end test run Use the State transfer tool to reuse work Run through cleanup routines in some Periodic menus and IDMF Several cycles to update the data: scripts for customized tables,

unique data tuning, and repeating until the required time window

DatabasePerformance Analyzer for Dynamics

SQL Profiler and Microsoft Dynamics AX Performance Analyzer are useful for debugging performance slowdowns http://archive.msdn.microsoft.com/DynamicsPerf

License

Existing Microsoft Dynamics AX 6.0/R1 license does not work in Microsoft Dynamics AX 6.2/R2

Data purging and archiving

Do not purge/leave behind companies, upgrade all companies at once

Purge and archive data via intelligent data management framework before upgrade

Backups

Back up database after each step!

TestUser acceptance test

Core business processes and key scenarios on upgraded database with your data and custom code in place

Business scenarios that must be supported after the upgrade in order to make a go/no-go decision

Trainings

User trainings are very important steps and user acceptance tests can be used as part of that

Multiple iterations

Plan at least two full test runs that are successful prior to running the live upgrade

Create a list of post-upgrade validation tasks and plan how they will be tested

Security

Additional time for designing and testing security setup

ExecutePost-upgrade tasks

Static post-upgrade data analysis

Rely on data upgrade test iterations to bring data forward to Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 and test code upgrade

Data verification

Identify your key business processes/scenarios that must be supported by your Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 instance

All tests should have a high level of data validation testing

Troubleshooting

Data consistency issues during upgrades: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/axsupport/archive/2012/11/05/troubleshooting-data-consistency-issues-during-upgrades.aspx

Freezing

Freeze for existing master data for preprocessing period is required

Inventory dimensions and items need special attention

More informationUpgrade best practices: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=238709 Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Upgrade Guide: http://www.microsoft.com/en-za/download/details.aspx?id=14599 Microsoft Dynamics AX support blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/axsupport/archive/2011/12/11/planning-your-data-upgrade-to-microsoft-dynamics-ax-2012.aspx

Summary

Check functional requirements

Plan your upgrade project

Analyze your source

Check customer motivation

Test the resultCheck and tune

performanceMake backups for

every stepPurge or archive historical data

Customer example

Creative Artists Agency - André Vargas

Goals and Functional Analysis

Plan Testing and GoLive Development

Upgrade project phases

PlanningScoping and planning

Proposals ranged from 12 to 16 weeks…

… it took 9 months

Waterfall vs. agile? We used scrum

Risk management

Size of the upgrade

Work sequencing

Testing

Performance

Context

60 users in accounting, finance and HR

260 GB database

Trust process had the most customizations

Change management

User experience change

Training and communications strategy

Not a silver bullet

Parallel testing

Team and resources

Hard to find the right resources.

Requires lots of memory, disk space and processing power … more than we thought

Risk register and project plan

Change Management

The user experience change

Training and communications strategy

Not a silver bullet

Parallel testing

Team and Resources

Not easy to find the right resources for an upgrade.

The upgrade requires lots of memory, disk space and processing power … more than we thought

Initial upgrade roadmap

Change Management

The user experience change

Training and communications strategy

Not a silver bullet

Parallel testing

Team and Resources

Not easy to find the right resources for an upgrade.

The upgrade requires lots of memory, disk space and processing power … more than we thought

Our decision matrix

Key statistics

Team2 developers for data upgrade7 developers for classes and forms upgrade3 functional analysts4 testers1 report analyst 3 report developers

80/20 rule

UpgradeTime (including pre-processing)Iteration 0 = 168 hoursPre go live iteration = 74 hours

First run failed scripts28 validation scripts 60 preprocessing scripts 146 post processing jobs

Other700+ objects upgraded manually198 test cases generating 1000 + test scenarios

DevelopmentFunctional analysis

Apples to apples upgrade. No process re-engineering

Looked at new AX 2012 features that could result in less customizations

Prepared training based on processes

Technical analysis

Engagement with the AX R&D team

Decision matrix

Infrastructure needs

Iteration 0

Data upgrade

Target schema

Upgrade scripts development

5 initial iterations, then 7 more during parallel testing

Smooth for the most part

Code upgrade

Code freeze struggles

Followed best practice:EDTs and Base Enums -> Tables -> classes -> forms

Had to rewrite all custom forms and all reports

From the trenches• Waves of testing, training, and then parallel testing• Sunk cost on iteration 1 … bug in upgrade script• Gotcha example – date effectivity example• Some upgrade script recommendations:

Changed standard upgrade script from row based to set based, reduced data migration duration from 55 hours to 5 hours

Changed standard script to commit after every 1000 updates where while loops cannot be avoided

Testing and go liveBenefits-based testing

Prioritized on benefit and risk

Plan for things to go wrong

Discover rework early

Invest in testing team and tools

Performance testing

Key processes performing slower in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012

Performance review

RDS versus Rich Client

Going live

Go live checklist

Well versed in the process

The first day in AX 2012

6 Weeks of stabilization

Parallel testing

Critical success factor

All users completed their daily tasks on Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 and Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012

7 full upgrades over 9 weeks

The checklist127 steps, starting on a Wednesday preparing the upgrade and preprocessing and finished Sunday afternoon, ready for business

First weeks after upgrade• Day one, our servers crashed 30 minutes before the end of

the day!• Substantial memory leak bug forced us to restart servers by

lunch time• Performance of our business users better than ever

What we are focusing on today

Conducted a performance review with Microsoft and implemented recommendations

Shift from a value creation phase to value extraction phase

Completed our upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics 2012 R2, which was a much smoother and smaller undertaking

Our critical success factors

Managing risks

Engagement with Microsoft

Dynamics AX R&D team

Our planningBusiness buy in to the process

Change management

Parallel testing The checklistAccess to resources

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