Web Client Wednesday: Microsoft Dynamics GP on Azure

Back in February of this year, I did a full walk-through of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 deployment on Windows Azure. I realized that one of the things that make it hard for partners and customers to determine whether to use the Windows Azure platform for hosting their Microsoft Dynamics GP solution is the scattered information regarding (application) features that are supported on the platform. In fact, did you know that even if you are not running Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013, you can still take advantage of Windows Azure to host other versions of Microsoft Dynamics GP? You can always run the desktop client with Remote Desktop Services (RDS) to accomplish this.

So, the objective of this article is to go over the Microsoft Dynamics GP components that are supported on the Windows Azure platform, which can be categorized into features that are Fully Supported and features requiring RDS licensing.

Full Support

These are features that are internet facing (accessed via a browser) from the Windows Azure platform, without requiring much interaction with the desktop client.

• Web Client
• Web Services
• Business Portal
• Workflow (limited Dynamics GP desktop client use)
• Management Reporter Web Viewer feature
• Tenant Services
• SQL Server Reporting Services Reports

RDS Licensing

These are features that you will access via a remote desktop connection and is no different than your traditional Terminal Services or Citrix experience.

• Microsoft Dynamics GP desktop client
• eConnect (determined by consuming application)
• Integration Manager
• Management Reporter Report Designer and Viewer
• Excel Reports
• Analysis Cubes

As you can tell, Windows Azure presents a great opportunity for those of you trying to leverage a world class data center. In addition, Azure allows connectivity to your LAN via its virtual network infrastructure. You can try it out free for 30 days by visiting http://www.windowsazure.com. All you need is a Microsoft Account (formerly Windows Live ID) to get started.

If you need a walk-through, please feel free to add your comment to this post with information on how to reach you.

For more info on RDS licensing, take a look at RDS Solution for Dynamics GP on Azure over at Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP.

Until next post!

MG.-
Mariano Gomez, MVP
IntellPartners, LLC
http://www.IntellPartners.com/

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Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 on Windows Azure: Wrap Up

It's been fun trying to get Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 Web Client to run on Azure. The bottom line is Windows Azure offers a very compelling deployment case for organizations running their applications (SaaS) and infrastructure (IaaS) in the cloud.

While many Azure platform features are still in Preview mode, I can say unequivocally that what's there works very well - too well, indeed. I had a few hiccups and I had to drop and recreate some VMs a few times, but I attribute that to the fact that I wasn't too aware of some of the feature settings. Also, a great deal had to do with the fact that my environment was running in free trial mode.

I also found that VMs tend to be a bit undersized on Azure. For example, a "Large" VM is 4 cores + 7GB in ram, which leads me to believe that the Azure platform is more geared towards lightweight applications than heavy, user-driven, business applications. Maybe I am making the wrong assumption here, but a decent size Dynamics GP deployment, involving 50+ users, may need up to 4 web servers and 4 session hosts to minimize any performance impact due to high user volume versus provisioned hardware capabilities.

Overall, the installation of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 Web Client wasn't without its head scratching moments. For example, certificates need to be switched to server public DNS names. While I got the Web Client up and running with the private DNS names, making the switch to public DNS for the certificates proved to be a task requiring reinstallation of the Session Service portion of the web client on the session host machine - changing the certificate for the IIS web site proved fairly simple.

Nonetheless, I had a lot of fun working on this "mini-project" so I leave you with a link to each of the articles I wrote on the subject:

Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 on Windows Azure: Subscription Process
Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 on Windows Azure: Provisioning Process
Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 on Windows Azure: The Deployment Process

In closing notes, Azure provides a serious deployment option for middle market organizations looking for a serious infrastructure hosting partner. The deployment procedures for Microsoft Dynamics GP are no different than those for an on-premise or hosted network, however proper security planning goes a long way to ensure your financial data is highly secure. Still, more documentation on the Azure installation process is required, and I know it is being worked on as I type.

A big thank you goes out to Daryl Anderson, Senior Program Manager at Microsoft for all his guidance and assistance troubleshooting some of the difficulties I experienced during this effort. Daryl continues to work tirelessly to document the entire implementation process.

Until next post!

MG.-
Mariano Gomez, MVP
IntellPartners, LLC
http://www.IntellPartners.com/

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Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 on Windows Azure: The Deployment Process

Welcome to the third installment on Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 on Windows Azure. In the previous article I showed how to provision the various VMs needed in our environment - see Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 on Windows Azure: Provisioning Process. The following is a summary of the VMs with the applications and services they will be running:

Server Name	Function
ip-ads01	AD DS server
ip-sql01	Database Server
ip-gp01	GP and Session Service
ip-gpweb	IIS, Web Client, WMC, and Session Central

The deployment started out with some prep work, as follows:

Active Directory Server (AD DS)

On the AD DS server, I setup a few domain user accounts and security groups that will be needed to run both Microsoft Dynamics GP's Session Service and Session Central Service services on the GP server (ip-gp01) and the Web Client and Web Management Console application pools on IIS (ip-gpweb). In addition, I have created two security groups, GP Web Admins to add any Dynamics GP web administrative user, and GP Web Users to add any domain account that will be accessing the Microsoft Dynamics GP via the web client interface.

Active Directory Users and Computers

Microsoft Dynamics GP Server (Session Host)

With the domain accounts and groups needed out of the way, I proceeded to install Microsoft Dynamics 2013 and the Web Client Runtime on ip-gp01. The installation is straight forward as you would expect with most GP installs. If you have configured your DNS server properly the ODBC configuration done by Dynamics GP should happen without a hitch. Upon completing the initial file installation, you will run Dynamics Utilities to setup the application system database - thanks to the new named system database feature in Dynamics GP 2013, I have called this DYNGPSYS - and setup the sample company, Fabrikam.

On this server also, I will setup a self-signed certificate pointing to my public DNS for this machine, ip-gp01.cloudapp.net, which I will export and import on my local machine. Another certificate is created for the private DNS, ip-gp01.ip-forest.local to create a secure communication between the web server and the session host.

For this, I use a tool called selfssl.exe which you can download below. Selfssl is a part of the IIS Resource Kit. From the command prompt with elevated administrative rights you can run the following command:

selfssl /N:CN=ip-gp01.clouldapp.net /V:365 /P:443 /T

Once selfssl generates the certificate, you can proceed to import the certificate into the Personal root and the Trusted Root Certification Authority folder using the Certificates mmc snap-in on the ip-gp01 VM. In addition, this same certificate must be imported on the IIS VM in the Trusted Root Certification Authority folder to provide a secure path to Session Service.


IIS Web Server

Next up was prepping the web server, ip-gpweb. The first task of order is to add the Web Server  (IIS) role to this VM, carefully making sure you select ASP.NET 4.5 from the Application Development Role Services for IIS - ASP.NET 4.5 is required by the Web Client components.

ASP.NET 4.5

Following the installation of IIS, you will then proceed to create a physical folder for the web client files - I took the easy way out and setup a C:\inetpub\gpweb.

In addition, I imported both certificates created for ip-gp01 to the Trusted Root Certification Authority folder to provide a secure path to the session host machine.

Finally, I used the selfssl.exe utility to create a self-signed certificate for the public DNS name of my machine, ip-gpweb.cloudapp.net.

selfssl /N:CN=ip-web.cloudapp.net /V:365 /T /P:443

I use this certificate to setup the web site in IIS, which is also a pre-requisite to the web client installation process:

Website created with self-signed certificate

Web Client Installation

The Web Client installation happens in two phases since I have provisioned a web server and plan to use a separate session host machine.

The Web Server

On the IIS server, you will need to run a custom install to select only the Web Server components.

Since you are working on Azure, to expose the website, you will need to create a new end-point on port 443 for the web server using the Azure Management portal (https://manage.windowsazure.com).

The Session Host Server

A custom installation to install the Session Server will do here.

The only tricky aspect is the runtime service, which requires a certificate to configure the service for SSL. Here I chose the cert previously created on ip-gp01. Note I am using port 443, which differs from the standard port, as it is the port I used when creating the certificate with the selfssl.exe utility.

Now that all is in place, you should be able to launch Internet Explorer from any machine outside of the Azure network and access Dynamics GP.

What I learned from this exercise:

1. Due to Azure's tight security, the provisioned servers have just the necessary TCP and UDP ports opened. On the SQL Server VM, you will need to open ports 1433 and 80 if deploying SSRS. SQL Server will also need to be reconfigured to support Mixed Mode Authentication prior to beginning the installation of Dynamics GP.

2. On the Dynamics GP and IIS servers, you will need to install .NET Framework 3.5 prior to running the Setup.exe application - by default, Windows Server 2012 installs .NET Framework 4.5. This could prove a bit confusing under Windows Server 2012, since during the confirmation process of adding the role, you are confronted with a warning message requesting an alternate path to the .NET Framework 3.5 installation files.

Add Roles and Features Wizard

As it turns out, the resolution is fairly well documented in Microsoft Support KB article 2734782 - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2734782, which calls for running the Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool (Dism) from the command line. Now, I happened to have the Windows Server 2012 installation files on a 32GB pen drive a carry around. By remoting into the GP and IIS servers with my local drives enabled I was able to point to the Sources folder on my pen drive allowing the .NET Framework 3.5 to be installed.

Dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:NetFx3 /All /Source:(folder_name)\sources\sxs /LimitAccess
 

3. It's easier to download the Silverlight client on your local machine and move it to your IIS VM, than attempting to install it from your IIS VM directly. As it turned out, Internet Explorer security on Azure disables scripting, so accessing any Microsoft website, ironically becomes a nightmare. You can download Silverlight from http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/

4. The tenant configuration file, TenantConfiguration.xml, must list (not point to, i.e., no UNC path) the paths on the session host server for each of the GP application runtime files requested. The tenant configuration file is a part of the Web Client files on the IIS VM.

There may certainly be other details that I may have forgotten to point out and other issues you may encounter along. This wasn't an easy process and frankly required quite a bit of research and bugging people like Microsoft's Daryl Anderson to get this right, but the effort was well worth it.

Until next post!

MG.-
Mariano Gomez, MVP
IntellPartners, LLC
http://www.IntellPartners.com/

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Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 on Windows Azure: Provisioning Process

Welcome to the second article on Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 and Windows Azure of this installment. In the first installment, I showed how to create an Azure account and setup a subscription - see Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 on Windows Azure: Subscription Process.

This time around I will review the virtual machines (VMs) provisioning process. For all intends and purposes, this environment will consist of an Active Directory Domain Server (AD DS), required to support authentication within our Azure environment; a Microsoft Dynamics GP application server, which will serve as a session host, therefore running GP and the Web Client Runtime; a Microsoft SQL Server database server, which will host the GP databases, the Web Management database, Session Central database, and Tenant Services database; and finally, a web server running IIS to support the Web Client itself along with the different session services required to run our web application.

For more information on Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 web client architecture, see Dynamics GP 2013 Web Client Infrastructure Overview over at Developing for Dynamics GP.

All these VMs need to be a part of an Azure Virtual Network (AVN), so you must start by creating one. The purpose of this article is not to discuss how to setup an AVN as there are some considerations for this, especially if you are going to network with your on-premise network. For more information on the steps required see Create a Virtual Network in Windows Azure. Suffice to say, the AVN I created is a pure cloud network and will not interact with my on-premise network.

Provisioning the Virtual Machines

In order to begin the provisioning process, it is necessary to go to the Windows Azure management portal - https://manage.windowsazure.com. If you have completed a new subscription, the welcome page will direct you to setup a new asset for the environment.

Azure Management Console

Active Directory VM provisioning

The first thing in my list is an Active Directory VM which I will call ip-ads01. This VM will serve up my environment's domain controller - my domain will be called ip-forest.local - and will act as a DNS server as well. It will also allow me to create my environment's users and add the necessary security groups needed for the Web Client. Please consult with a network administrator on the steps required to setup AD DS. You can find more info in the following Microsoft TechNet article: AD DS Design Guide.

One of the cool aspects of Azure is the ability to select the type of memory and core you will be needing for your VM. I decided to go with a Large server, since I will be running Windows Server 2012 and AD DS management console tends to also use up some memory.

Once the server is been provisioned, setting up AD DS and making the server a primary domain controller should be fairly straight forward (using Server Manager) - dcpromo has been deprecated in Windows Server 2012 - see Introducing the first Windows Server 2012 Domain Controller (Part 1 of 2) over at the Server and Management team blog.

Dynamics GP VM provisioning

Once we complete the AD DS server setup, it's time to move on to provisioning the Dynamics GP VM. The process is similar to the Active Directory server provisioning. Here, I am also choosing a Windows Server 2012 machine to run the Dynamics GP client and the Web Client Runtime - in conjunction our session host server.

VM OS Selection

This server will be known as ip-gp01 and I will use a Large size setup to begin with. Note that in Azure you can change your VM configuration to increase or decrease the amount of resources you are using.

VM configuration

Next is the VM mode configuration, which could pretty much be summarized as setting up the VM's DNS on your Azure network. For obvious reasons, I am removing my Azure DNS extension in the picture below.

Finally, in the step of setting up the VM, you will want to assign an availability set. Again, not a topic for this article, but suffice to say something critical to consider during your Azure planning if you are to ensure maximum application uptime - see Manage the Availability of Virtual Machines for more information.

VM Options

Once you have navigated through the simple 4 step process, the provisioning process begins. From end-to-end this should be no more than 3 minutes, which I find to be very impressive.


Provisioning process kicked off for our first machine

SQL Server Provisioning

Not to be confused with SQL Azure, we will be provisioning a standard VM running a full version of Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Evaluation Edition. Interestingly enough, you can only get this on a Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system if you decide to use the standard gallery image. The alternative, of course, is to provision a standard Windows Server 2012 VM, then manually load SQL Server 2012 on it. Again, since this is a demo environment and my intent is not to install GP on the SQL Server - just one of those best practices items that I follow - I will continue and provision the standard image available from the gallery.

Microsoft Dynamics GP is not supported on SQL Azure (yet!) due to a number of design limitations in the latter, for example, cross-database operations. This is significant since Dynamics GP makes extensive calls to the system database from within the company database.


From here on, the VM configuration is standard. I chose to name this machine ip-sql01.

The final VM to provision is the web server, for which I will be using a Windows Server 2012 image and will add IIS later. You can follow the instructions in Installing IIS 8 on Windows Server 2012 after the provisioning process has been completed to get IIS up and running.

A few notes from this exercise...

1) Once you have provisioned all machines, you will need remote into each to change the DNS settings on each to point to your DNS server on your AD DS VM. At this point, you can join them to the domain. To remote into a machine, highlight the VM and click on the Connect button at the lower end of the screen.



Management Console screen

2) On the SQL Server, you will need to open ports 1433 and 80 to the domain only. Port security is pretty tight for the provisioned VMs. In addition, you will need to change SQL Server security to Mixed Mode and configure SQL Server Reporting Services by using the standard Reporting Services Configuration tool.

3) The PING command line utility is disabled in Azure, so don't try to use it. You cannot ping a VM from another one. A good measure of success is attempting to add your servers in Server Manager on your AD DS VM. If you can add each server, you are good to go which means TCP/IP is working as expected within your Azure virtual network.

My next installment will focus on getting the GP session host up and running. As we move through each server installation, I will continue to point out other considerations in making this all work.

Until next post!

MG.-
Mariano Gomez, MVP
IntellPartners, LLC
http://www.IntellPartners.com/

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Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 on Windows Azure: Subscription Process

In my previous article, I provided an intro on the necessary elements required to deploy Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 on Windows Azure - see Deploying Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 on Azure - Introduction. Now, I begin a series of articles showing step by step how to configure the platform.

The first thing you will need to do is setup a subscription. As it turns out, Microsoft is running a 90-day free trial, how about that? The free trial allows you some good room to get a couple servers required for setting up a Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 session host and the Web Client. Storage is set currently at 35 GB, so I believe we have plenty room to play.

So on we go by clicking the Free Trial option, which takes us to the Sign In page. Authentication is done via your Windows Live account, so one is effectively required.

Don't worry! Even if you haven't signed into Windows Azure before, you will be prompted to follow the account creation process. You will now be able to see what's being offered as part of your 90-day free trial. Ah, don't forget your credit card. You will not be charged as your initial spending limit is defaulted to $0 during the free trial period. A credit card is also required to verify your identity.

Upon clicking the arrow to continue with the account creation and subscription process, you are now faced with the credit card entry window. Very simple! Pop out your shiny [favorite card name here] and just follow the data entry fields. Click the next button to validate the credit card info and complete the account setup and subscription.

Once the credit card is validated, you are good to go. You will now be sent back to the Azure home page where you can manage your account and go to the administrative portal. My next article will focus on how to provision the machines needed to setup our Microsoft Dynamics GP environment.

Until next post!

MG.-
Mariano Gomez, MVP
IntellPartners, LLC
http://www.IntellPartners.com/

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Deploying Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 on Azure - Introduction

Today is the BIG DAY! Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 has been released!

PartnerSource: Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 Product Release Download page
Microsoft Download Center: Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 What's New


With that said, I wanted to move forward and start to look at some really cool stuff you can do with Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 and the Web Client. Now that I've had a chance to deploy the Web Client on a number of sandboxes here in my test lab and pretty much have all the on-premise deployment down, it's time to show you one more cool stuff: Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 and Web Client deployment on Microsoft Azure platform.

Windows Azure is an open and flexible cloud platform that enables you to quickly build, deploy and manage applications across a global network of Microsoft-managed datacenters. You can build applications using any language, tool or framework. And you can integrate your public cloud applications with your existing IT environment. The overall goal of Windows Azure is to provide a scalable PaaS (Platform as a Service) and IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) to subscribers.

Examples and SDKs are available in the Developer Center at

http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/overview/.

Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 Azure Deployment

A Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 deployment on Microsoft Azure focuses on 4 main aspects (assuming you have already completed all the sign up and subscription process):

1. Provisioning a virtual network, which can be optionally integrated to your local network.
2. Provision an Active Directory Domain Controller to manage the virtual network environment. (optional depending on whether you integrate the virtual network to your local network or not)
3. Provisioning the different virtual machines to support the IIS web server, Web Client, and Web Management Console applications; the various services (Session Central, Session Service, Tenant Services, and the GP Web Services) if deploying each service on separate servers; and the session hosts virtual machines to host the Microsoft Dynamics GP runtime client.
4. Provisioning a Microsoft SQL Server 2012 virtual machine and storage to host the various company and system databases and deploy a Reports Server.

NOTE: SQL Server 2012 will need to be reconfigured to support SQL authentication. The standard galleries provided on the Azure platform are configured by default to support Windows authentication. SQL Azure is currently not supported with Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 on Windows Azure.

A simple Azure deployment environment is shown in the above picture.

Once the environment has been provisioned, the Microsoft Dynamics GP installation process is fairly comparable to that of an on-premise installation. The installation process will start by installing Microsoft Dynamics GP desktop client on the web client server (or on the SQL Server) and running GP Utilities to set up the databases. The installation is done via Remote Desktop Client which is used for management of the environment only.

Up next is the installation of the web client and web management console applications on the IIS web server. An endpoint will need to be created using the Azure Management Portal for Internet access to the virtual machines. Upon completing the deployment of the Azure environment, access to GP is achieved via Internet Explorer from outside the Azure virtual network.

This is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. In the next few days, I will be whipping out the credit card to setup an Azure subscription and walk through all the different provisioning steps and the Web Client installation process. I will detail all of these in a series of articles to come.

Special thanks to Daryl Anderson, Senior Program Manager and Aaron Donat, Senior Escalation Engineer at Microsoft for their input and editorial contribution to this article

Downloads

Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 and Windows Azure (D109GPandAzure.pptx)

Resources

To read more about Microsoft plans for the Dynamics applications and Azure, click on the following link over at MSDynamicsWorld:

Microsoft Shares Updated Azure Plans for Dynamics NAV 2013, GP 2013, AX

Until next post!

MG.-
Mariano Gomez, MVP
IntellPartners, LLC
http://www.IntellPartners.com/

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