Speed of azure nav server, what is a good configuration?

mdPartnerNL

We are looking for a good setup in azure for 7 users.

The SQL server will be a A3 server (used by 3 companies)

The NAV servicetier will be a A2 server.

If the clients connect directly to the cloud from their own pc will this A2 server have enough speed?

Im open to suggestions?

brunelli

To have a better answer to your question, it would be interesting to know more about the details: Windows Client or Web Client? How big will the database be in GB. Now and over the next 5 years? What are the users doing? How many transactions will they post per hour? How much in peak time? Are they using Excel integration regularly? …..

Based on MS requirements for NAV 2013 R2 you are fine with the setup. I expect this could work with a single A3 server too. But as already stated, more details would be needed.

An important factor of performance might be the network latency from the client to azure. Everything under 50ms is ok. With NAV 2013 R2 it works also with 200ms, but this is not recommended for power users. Check here to get an idea how your clients situation in regard to latency could be.
http://azurespeedtest.azurewebsites.net/

If you plan to deal with a large SQL database, you might consider to use more than one data file and spread it over different disks.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlcat/archive/ ... ample.aspx

mdPartnerNL

Thanks for replying. Looks like this forum is not used by a lot of consultants anymore :shock:

The A2 server will be used for a max of 5-10 users depending on their work. Most of the posting is done weekly with invoicing (20-50 orders a day, 200-400 invoices per week). If more processing is needed I would like to keep on using the first A3 as a SQL Server and instead of A2 use a A3 Server for the NAV Service Tier.

Database will be about 6Gb after 5 years per Service Tier. And think 4 - 5 Service Tiers can connect.

I have seen other partners selling a cloud database and service tier. The client will then be the only thing locally but from my own experience it's not that responsive with azure.

defiant701

mdPartnerNL wrote:

Thanks for replying. Looks like this forum is not used by a lot of consultants anymore :shock:

--> might be, but AZURE is still not very common among NAV Partners. Equal to RIM.

mdPartnerNL wrote:

Database will be about 6Gb after 5 years per Service Tier. And think 4 - 5 Service Tiers can connect.

I have seen other partners selling a cloud database and service tier. The client will then be the only thing locally but from my own experience it's not that responsive with azure.

What do you mean with 4-5 Service tiers can connect?

For the scaling on AZURE it depends on some scenario planning. So for the amount of users (avarage 7) it should be enough to have the medium VM for the service Tier and also for the SQL Server (NAV2013R2). If you really facing problems, it takes you less than 5 min. to switch to a higher class. If you also want to use the webclient, you can add another small VM to your collection containing the IIS. You are also able to use AZURE SQL. In that case you just need a focus on the service Tier(and if you have the IIS).

Me and my team have nearly the same set with around 10 developers and multiple environments (instances).

mdPartnerNL

Q.
4-5 tiers?

A.
So one A3 SQL Server is available for 5 customers with an average of 7 users.

Each company uses a separate Service Tier.

defiant701

Seems to get clearer to me. So you want to consolidate multiple "customers" to one collection (e.g. a domain with one structure (3-tier) but multiple customers). So from the technical perspective it's an SQL Server able to have multiple connections (from users or services) via tcp,namepipes.... and on the Service Tier you can have multiple instances running. So from this perspective it would work. But is that really the way you want to provide solutions? I went with Microsoft through almost every Scenario for customer deployments and there are many good Solutions. So maybe you could describe it a little bit in detail what you want to have in the end. PM is also possible.

KR

mdPartnerNL

defiant701 wrote:

Seems to get clearer to me. So you want to consolidate multiple "customers" to one collection (e.g. a domain with one structure (3-tier) but multiple customers). So from the technical perspective it's an SQL Server able to have multiple connections (from users or services) via tcp,namepipes.... and on the Service Tier you can have multiple instances running. So from this perspective it would work. But is that really the way you want to provide solutions? I went with Microsoft through almost every Scenario for customer deployments and there are many good Solutions. So maybe you could describe it a little bit in detail what you want to have in the end. PM is also possible.

KR

Most of the time it will be a situation where the customer has (1) one A2 VM Server, with only one Service Tier for their users. We will have (1) one A3 SQL Server running in multi-tenant mode. This way our AddOn can be used with (1) one code base. But the customer can use a separate database too.

thegunzo

This post from Waldo might help you.

http://www.waldo.be/2014/02/12/microsoft-dynamics-nav-2013-r2-in-office-365-on-windows-azure/

defiant701

Yep that works fine if your customers are keen in having standards. 1 application and multiple customer databases (read-only?). So you are the gods of the domain behind. Even in this scenario there is no need for having different VMs for the service tier. Just create different instances and different clickonce manifests for the customer deployments. Do you plan to have NAVUSERPASSWORD or ACS for SSO Login?

mdPartnerNL

defiant701 wrote:

Yep that works fine if your customers are keen in having standards. 1 application and multiple customer databases (read-only?). So you are the gods of the domain behind. Even in this scenario there is no need for having different VMs for the service tier. Just create different instances and different clickonce manifests for the customer deployments. Do you plan to have NAVUSERPASSWORD or ACS for SSO Login?

Nothing to do with God..:) but with updates and repeatable fast installations.. Customers wants to have all updates to newer and better versions but does not understand all these update costs.

We want to use NAvuserpassword, but want to try to use office365 with azure ad. Did not try it out yet. ACS is local AD?

defiant701

mdPartnerNL wrote:

We want to use NAvuserpassword, but want to try to use office365 with azure ad. Did not try it out yet. ACS is local AD?

NAVUSERPASSWORD works fine, but it's not so comfortable when changing between Servers (e.g. UAT/PRD). I don't think that Office365 is for logon to NAV. ACS = Access Control Service = Windows ID / Google ID & AD Federation Services which is the best solution from my own experience.

defiant701

defiant701 wrote:

I don't think that Office365 is for logon to NAV.

Update --> Office 365 Login works equal to ACS for Federation Services (I haven't used Office 365 before)

mdPartnerNL

Thanks for the update. A lot of researching to do..

Michael_Nielsen_[MSFT]

Last week we release guidelines for sizing on Azure "Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 R2 Sizing Guidelines for Multitenant Deployments White Paper" on Partnersource. I hope that will answer most of your questions.

Michael

mdPartnerNL

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