Other recent Dynamics AX Blog postings

Freitag, August 19, 2005

Tip: How to renumber your RecId's

Every record in Axapta will have one unique identifier: the RecId.
The RecId will be unique per company and the system gets the next RecId number from the table SYSTEMSEQUENCES, field "NEXTVAL".
Sometimes Axapta also does not only take one number but will take more (I remember to have read that it can be up to 24 numbers)
The field is a signed integer in the database, so it can happen that you will swap from positive RecId's to negative RecId's. The range in which recid's are allocated is between 2.147.nnn.nnn and -2.147.nnn.nnn.
If you have "holes" in your RecId, it may then be interesting to renumber all RecId's, starting with the number 1 again. You can do this by running the script "Check Record Ids" in the menu Administration/Periodic/SQL Administration.
What will the script do?
--> It will create some new tables on the SQL database, collect all RecId numbers, assign new RecID number starting from one.
It will then check all Axapta tables if there are fields that are a reference to a RecId. If yes, the old RecId Reference will be replaced by the new one.
And here is also a very important trap: you must be sure that all your database fields that are a referenced RecID are extended from any type of RecId datatype.

The script itself will run quite fast. I was once using it on a 2.5 Axapta database with about 2GB of data and it was finished after about 1 hour.

Dienstag, August 09, 2005

Error: Form adjustments are gone after restarting AOS

Hi
You may have problems losing the users' form adjustments after the AOS has been restarted. Here is what I found out in an AOS cluster setup:

Setup:
2 different PC running the AOS service (Axapta 3.0SP3)
One of them hosts the SQL Server
Application files: on a third PC (Axapta 3.0SP3)

Both AOS instances point to the same database, the same application and are in the same AOS cluster.

For better understanding, client running on AOS 1 will be marked red in this blog.
For better understanding, client running on AOS 2 will be marked green in this blog.

Now, start Client pointing to AOS1, go to User/Options and delete all usage data.
Restart both AOS instances.
Now, we should have a pretty clean installation with no usage data.

Start client pointing to AOS1.
After that start client pointing to AOS2.

On Client AOS1, open the inventory form.

Original inventory form:

Make the Item name field smaller and the search name bigger.
After that the inventory form should look something like this:

Close the inventory form on client AOS1.
Open the inventory form on client AOS2.
The inventory form on client AOS2 still looks the same as the original, the changes done on AOS1 are not visible.
Close the inventory form on client AOS2.

Close application on client AOS1.
Close application on client AOS2.

Stop AOS instance on AOS1.
Stop AOS instance on AOS2.
Start AOS instance on AOS1.
Start AOS instance on AOS2.

Start the client AOS1.
Open the inventory form.
And here is how it looks like:
=looks like standard form

CHANGES ARE GONE !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Donnerstag, August 04, 2005

Axapta 3.0 and SQL2005

I was asking Microsoft if there will be a version of Axapta 3.0 that will work with SQL 2005.
Here is what I got today as answer:

"Right now what I can tell you is that Axapta 4.0 will run with MS SQL Server 2005.

We can not confirm that Axapta 3.0 will work with MS SQL Server 2005 at this point in time.

Technically it is possible to set up MS SQL Server 2005 so it operates like MS SQL Server 2000 in theory this makes it possible to use Axapta 3.0 with this database but we would need to make the tests necessary internally before we officially can make any confirmations."


What makes me curious about it is: SQL 2005 will be released in autumn 2005 (october?), Axapta 4.0 will be released in Q2/2006 (meaning July 2006).
So, there will be a time period of 6-8 months where Microsoft will have to tell new Axapta customers that they cannot use SQL2005.
Just imagine a new Axapta customer that wants to start running Axapta March 1st, 2006. He will not be able to run Axapta with SQL2005.

Don't you also think that's kind of strange from the sales point of view?

Montag, August 01, 2005

New hardware sizing guide by Microsoft

Hi
My sources tell me that Microsoft has released a document called "Axapta Hardware Guide For Environments Less Then 100 Users".

It's a word doc and will give you recommendations for

  • Axapta Database Server
  • Axapta Object Server (AOS)
  • Axapta Application Server
  • Axapta Enterprise Portal Server
  • Axapta Batch Server
  • Storage
concerning CPU's, memory, network, RAID system.
You should ask your Axapta partner for a copy of the document.

If you will have more that 100 users, you must enter some data in an Excel sheet which will then be processed by Microsoft (ask your Axapta partner).

Today, I also found in Harish Mohanbabu's Blog something about sizing. Check if out here: http://www.livejournal.com/~harish_m/