Microsoft Dynamics NAV deployments

A NAV deployment can essentially be as follows:

• On-premise
• On-cloud (IaaS or PaaS)
• SaaS

With an on-premise deployment, Microsoft Dynamics ERP software is hosted at your own location on your own servers.

This type of architecture guarantees predictable performance (not subject to Internet connection related fluctuations in performance or availability), you can use the hardware and software infrastructure you already own, you can easily connect NAV with external systems that you can have inside your company, and obviously you have to guarantee data security (backup and so on) by yourself.

With on-cloud deployment, you can choose to deploy your NAV installation on the cloud by choosing from an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) architecture or a PaaS architecture. The Windows Azure platform permits you to have a complete NAV environment (virtual machine) totally scalable. Security is guaranteed by the Azure platform (redundancy, scalability, and so on).

Azure is the fastest and recommended way to implement a totally on-cloud NAV deployment.

The on-cloud deployment permits you to minimize your initial IT investments (no hardware costs, no IT staff for maintenance) and it supports your business as it grows (costs can scale with the actual use and needs of your solutions).

In an on-cloud deployment, you can choose to have the Microsoft SQL Server installed on a dedicated instance on an Azure virtual machine or you can use the Azure SQL database, a cloud service that permits you to have the SQL Server as a service, with reduced costs and no investments in database management tasks. With Azure SQL, you could also have a mixed deployment, where only the database tier is on the cloud.

There's also a very new option available on the market now: Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Financials (also known as Project Madeira).

Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a Software as a Service (SaaS) business proposition by Microsoft that aims to bring together the best of their CRM and ERP cloud offerings into one cloud service with specific, purpose built apps for each of your key business processes.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Financials is available on a simplified subscription model similar to the actual Office 365 offering and it guarantees a rapid ERP implementation (nothing to install or configure for the startup, no IT staff needed) and a familiar usage and user interface. You can work with Dynamics 365 from within Office 365 (no separate login to connect to the ERP) and you can do all your business from your familiar applications, for example, without having to leave Outlook (Dynamics 365 recognizes content such as invoice numbers inside an Outlook message and it suggests to you all the tools you need to process the document and complete your business process).

The interesting feature of this new SaaS ERP platform is that Dynamics 365 shares a Common Data Model (CDM) with Office 365. According to Microsoft's definition: it is a database of entities that are common across industry domains.

This new CMD provides all the standard business entities and it allows you to extend them and create new entities that suit your business. The CDM uses Azure technologies such as Service Fabric and Elastic SQL and it guarantees security, scalability, and consistency across applications.

The following screenshot shows an overview of the Dynamics 365 platform's architecture:

Dynamics 365 is available in the following two editions:

• Business (a cloud-based solution based on NAV core)
• Enterprise (AX and CRM core)

Dynamics 365 is licensed by the following three features:

• License by App: It will be licensed by app (you can activate a specific functionality you need).
• License by Role (or by Plan): It will be licensed based on the role of your employees. Licensing by Role/Plan is a package of apps for companies that need to access multiple functions (for example when an employee works on Operations and Finance at the same time) 
• License for team members: It will be licensed by team members (something like a light user):

A big new feature of Dynamics 365 will be the app concept. Users will be able to go to Microsoft's dedicated marketplace called AppSource and download a range of applications to suit their specific needs. You can reach the AppSource website at https://appsource.microsoft.com:

The new apps are built as extensions to the ERP core and they can be easily and independently deployed (you can pay for what you really need and use).

The new platform is natively integrated with Power BI and Cortana Intelligence. For example, you can install a feature from the Extension MarketPlace called Sales and Inventory Forecast and after a quick setup you can go on the item list, select an item, click the Forecast FactBox, and immediately see its sales and inventory forecast:

The connection with Cortana Intelligence is given natively by the platform (no configuration needed), as shown in the following screenshot:

Dynamics 365 is an ongoing project, and more and more features will be added in the coming months and years.