Why and How" move Dynamics NAV to Windows Azure?

WHY:

"Windows Azure: Benefits of Moving Dynamics NAV to Microsoft’s Cloud"

Prior to the release of the provisioning tools for Dynamics NAV on Windows Azure Infrastructure Services (WAIS), customers had two deployment options:

Now, with Azure, NAV customers that are considering moving to the cloud now have access to enterprise-class infrastructure at budget-friendly prices. (This infographic from Microsoft provides an overview of features, services, and common uses).

Below are 3 reasons why making the move to Azure makes strategic sense for your business.

Why Move NAV to Windows Azure?

1. More stable and secure infrastructure – backed by SLA (Service Level Agreements)

From Microsoft’s website:

  “Cloud Services, Virtual Machines and Virtual Network

• For Cloud Services, we guarantee that when you deploy two or more role instances in different fault and upgrade domains, your Internet facing roles will have external connectivity at least 99.95% of the time.
• For all Internet facing Virtual Machines that have two or more instances deployed in the same Availability Set, we guarantee you will have external connectivity at least 99.95% of the time.
• For Virtual Network, we guarantee a 99.9% Virtual Network Gateway availability.”

Typically for small to mid-market businesses, IT staffing is limited, and most companies would prefer to focus on key business objectives, rather than hardware issues. Through migrating infrastructure and Dynamics NAV to an enterprise-class platform like Windows Azure, this worry is reduced.

 2. Low cost and a flexible subscription model

The model for Azure is best described as “pay as you go”, with no upfront investments and no monthly/yearly commitment. This means that you only pay for what you use, and as such, are charged by the minute. This is different from traditional server hosting which charges you by the instance with a fixed cost per month.

If you shut down and de-allocate the server, Microsoft won’t charge you anything. Just like using a light – if it isn’t on, it doesn’t cost you anything. While the Pay as You Go plan offers flexibility with no upfront costs and no long term commitment, Windows Azure also offers 6 and 12 month plans which save up to 32% (with a minimum commitment of $550 per month).  You can use Microsoft’s pricing calculator to determine baseline costs for your engagement.

With Azure, you can scale up or down on demand.  You can either run or stop the VM, change its size, attach or detach disks, and configure endpoints and load balancer settings.

 3. Save time on new server deployment and migration

Other than no upfront cost and investment risk, Windows Azure’s Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) makes it easier to deploy new servers, or migrate existing servers. You can quickly spin up a new server on Windows Azure within minutes from the server Image Gallery offered by Microsoft (including Windows Server, SQL Server, SharePoint Server etc.), or the pre-configured/customized server images uploaded by you.

If you have physical servers or VM running on VMWare or Hyper-V, you can migrate them to Azure and keep your application as is, either with little or no configuration changes required.

HOW:

from NAV Team Blog: "Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 R2 available in the Windows Azure Portal under MSDN Subscription"

Ever wondered what it is like to work with Microsoft Dynamics NAV on Windows Azure - but found it too cumbersome even with our nice Windows Azure provisioning tools?  Then this might be something for you. 

Today we have made Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 R2 easily available on Windows Azure with just a few clicks. The Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 R2 image is an exclusive offer for MSDN subscribers and includes a fully functional, ready to use Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 R2 installation including Microsoft SQL Server. The MSDN subscription gives you the well-known discounted prices and allows you to use it for development, test, and demo purposes, but not for production purposes.

"How to get it?"  Make sure you have an MSDN subscription and the subscription has Windows Azure benefits activated.

Then follow these steps:

- Sign in to the Windows Azure Portal using your MSDN subscription.

- Choose the + sign at the bottom of the Portal page.

- Choose Compute, point to Virtual Machine, and then choose From Gallery.

- Select the MSDN filtering checkbox as shown in the following screenshot. This will filter the list to only show the available MSDN images.

- Choose the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 R2 image:

-Choose the arrow in the lower-right corner.

-Fill in the relevant fields about the virtual machine as described in the following list:

-Specify the name of the virtual machine.

-Specify the size of the virtual machine, such as Medium.

-Specify the user name and password for connecting to the virtual machine.

-Specify the region  where you want to host your virtual machine, such as West Europe.

-Verify the remaining parameters. In most cases, the default values are sufficient.

Choose the Finish icon to start the provisioning process.

Once the image is provisioned after a few minutes, you can use Remote Desktop to connect to it. In the Azure Portal Virtual Machine page, choose the newly created image, and then choose Connect. Use the credentials that you specified step 7.

When you are connected to the VM, you are welcomed to the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 R2 virtual machine on Windows Azure:

No further configuration is required and you can immediately start using the clients and the development environment.

Great posts by Jeff Tang on catapulterp.com and Kamil Koclega & Morten Jensen from the Dynamics NAV Team