Dynamics AX New Deployment and Servicing Options

Dynamics 365 for Operations (previously called Dynamics AX) is Microsoft’s enterprise resource planning product aimed at multinational midmarket companies and enterprises. On-premises customers can choose between two deployment options: maintain and control business data exclusively on-premises or synchronize on-premises business data with an online instance to access Azure-based business intelligence and disaster recovery features. On-premises deployments could help regulated industries control data locally, while synchronizing with hosted services will help global organizations with multiple instances consolidate data for reporting and analysis. Both options require trade-offs, Microsoft-hosted management tools, and an update cadence that may be too fast for some industries.

Dynamics AX Moves to Azure and Changes Name

The latest release of Dynamics AX became generally available in Mar. 2016, when the product’s platform became a Platform as a Service (PaaS) offering built on Azure. In this configuration, each instance is deployed in a controlled environment in Azure, where responsibility for managing the environment is divided between Microsoft and the customer or partner. Microsoft manages the underlying infrastructure, server environment, and platform layer. The customer or partner manages the application code layer, which contains higher-level user features and where customizations, integrations, and add-ons are applied.