NAV 2009 Best Practices Analyzer

matttrax

I hadn't heard about this anywhere so I thought I would share.

I was on a support call with Microsoft last week and they had me download this tool:

https://mbs.microsoft.com/customersourc ... 20analyzer

For some reason it was only on customersource, not partnersource. We couldn't get it to work in our environment, but evidently it scans your network, including AD, and tell you if your NAV 2009 install is done correctly. Maybe someone can test it out and report back.

alexpeck

NAV BPA doesn't support clustered SQL instances. This was a decision we made because the dev & test overhead is very high and few customers use clustering.

I think you are using clustered SQL, but if not can you please provide details of what didn't work in your environment?

Thanks
Alex

matttrax

We are on a cluster so that is probably one reason.

Our main problem was that we did not run it on the NAV Server.

The critical problems it is supposed to find:

Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server has not been installed
SQL Server service is stopped
Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server service is stopped
Microsoft Dynamics NAV Web Server service is stopped - All Web Services are stopped, not reported
Could not connect to SQL Server
Service account is not a database user
Insufficient permissions are granted to Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server service account
Service principal name is missing
UserAccountControl flag is set to NOT_DELEGATED
Constrained delegation is not configured - We do not have constrained delegation on
Duplicate service principal name was detected
WMI cannot be accessed on SQL Server
Invalid Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server Configuration File

alexpeck

As described in the help, NAV BPA is designed to be run from the NAV service tier host. BPA inspects the local registry to find your installation directory, then from here compares the configuration defined in the service config file with your environment.

Clustered SQL depends on a specialised SPN scheme that is not supported by NAV BPA. Even if you run the tool on the service tier host the rules for SPNs and constrained delegation will not work (i.e. may give incorrect/misleading results).

Alex

matttrax

It seems like a really good tool, although basic in what it can do. Setting this stuff up has been the most complicated thing I've done in a long time and anything that can help to speed up that process and check what's going on gets a :thumbsup: from me.