Effectiveness of Axapta on WAN

campbell

We are currently in the process of evaluating several ERP packages, on of which, happens to be Axapta. Whilst we are extremely impressed with the product we do have reservations about its performance over a WAN.

My company is essentially a retail organisation in the engineering consumables market. We basically operate a Sales and Dsitribution type operation with a Head Office, Warehousing and network of 100 branches. Our current legacy system is a UNIX based application which is manged centrally by the IT department at Head Office. Whilst the communications infrastructure in South Africa is adequate it is'nt anywhere near the standards of Europe.

Moving to an Axapta solution poses many problems not least of all the damn reliance on Microsoft CALS for Terminal Server Clients! Our initial view is to have 300 Windows Clients and 700 Web Clients as the majority of users are essentially 'Lightweight' in that their primary function is Invoicing and Stock Inquiries / Transfers. Placing ALL users on the Windows Client is simply not practical - too many CALS required, Windows Client is Costly and Bandwidth usage would sky rocket!

Web Clients are more attractive in that they should be considerably less bandwidth intensive. In this scenario the se clients would simply run off a Wyse or NCD thin client and boot directly into IE - no need for Terminal Server Clients Licenses! My concerns, amongts others, are: -

Just how functional is the Web Client?
How easy is it to use?
How fast can a user generate an Invoice?
Will it be a better option than a Windows Client from a bandwidth perspective?

At the end of the day we reagrd Axapta as being the most technically advanced product out of the batch we are looking at viz. JDE, Kerridge and Movex. As we are a highly active IT department we require a product that can be modified and extended which is where Axapta is so strong.

Anyone have any comments, suggestions etc?

tia

Campbell

matthias2912

What do you mean by a web client?
Are there any different clients?

I don´t know it...

Mugur

Hi Campbell,

Below are some answers according my point of view..

1. Just how functional is the Web Client?

The web client is accessing Axapta through a dynamic web page (asp) by using Ax. COM. Axapta greatly supports construction of web sites directly from its dev. env., by writing x++ code and using Web objects (web pages, web forms etc), so you will not need to use an external editor to manually create a web site with user interfaces / COM functions.

Also, Axapta already has a complex build-in web application called Enterprise Portal which provides some specific functionality and can be futher enhanced to map your current needs.

2. How easy is it to use?

Just like any other dynamic web site. The only problem is that the data is not validated after each field is updated, but only after the whole page is submitted.

3. How fast can a user generate an Invoice?

Since the Axapta is accessed through the COM from asp (which is executed on the server) the performance of invoice processing should be the same as for desktop clients. The additional timing is generated by the web page data which is being sent between server and client (browser).

4. Will it be a better option than a Windows Client from a bandwidth
perspective?

I believe yes, because in this case you usually are sending only alphanumeric data. When using the remote desktop connection the data transfer is highly increased because the entier interface is being sent. (aplhanumeric data is sent faster than images).

Mugur

lool just noticed i gave reply to a 3 yrs old topic
i was tricked by the previous reply which is much newer... i guess campbell has already found answers to it's questions.

spinnetho

Hi Mugur... Actually we are facing similar worries as Campbell.. we are right now planing an infrastructure, where we have the AOS enviroment i Denmark, and need to have among others 30 clients working from our Hong Kong office.. we have established 512kbit MCI MPLS.. but one or 2 citrix clients log on, and the the applications hangs, and/or gets extremely slow.. other systems work fine.. so we are worried if we are choosing the right setup, which is.. Axapta 3 tier, accesed from far-eat via citrix client, over MPLS based WAN with QoS.