My thoughts on on-premises/LBD (as of 19th March 2018)

Minimum number of VM(s) has been a real issue and question since on-premises was launched. We respect Microsoft recommendations for production instances, but for sandbox or for any other tiers, we look forward Microsoft say on reducing the number of VM(s). Let’s say for any experimental purpose if we want to build, a TEST system for few users, we should not be asked to invest in 13 VM(s). This is a huge number, it does not matter if hardware prices have been reduced over the years.

At the same time there isn’t any equivalent experience for on- premises, unless we finish its installation. For cloud we have an option to deploy a low tier box, anytime we want, using our own or Microsoft provided subscription, that means cloud implementations are getting almost same experience of working on AX7 since day 1, as in production someday later (from an end user perspective). For on-prem we cannot taste it before cooking. 

For on- premises we cannot download VHD(s) and merge those to build a kind of TEST/Demo environment. If you are thinking of downloading VHD which is available online, that is for development purposes and not for an equivalent on- premises experience. If we recall AX2012 there used to be option to download many VHD(s) [Called Demo solution] and then deploy those to get all experience such as Retail, BI, EP and AX etc. Irrespective of details, we are expecting an equivalent experience for on- premises, just because of the time and resources (VM) it takes . 

We appreciate recent improvement by Microsoft, for installation of on- premises as new scripts support us to run commands ending with ***AllVMs ; that means we don’t need to switch over VM(s) during installation. Great!

Yet we need to go and open configuration files, and play with those to produce correct ConfigTemplate.XML. Does not matter if you want to reduce number of VM(s) or not, you have to play with configuration files. It would be lovely to have installation wizard that may ask me all the details and then does everything on its own. The wizard may ask about IP(s) of servers, name of AD etc. assume if we are running commands to add Certificates today, the wizard should handle this itself, without need to run commands. That’s just one example of adding certificates; there are many other examples that involve commands, during the current installation experience.

We appreciate hard work being done by Microsoft; the on- premises is a reality and many would go for it, over years, it would be great if Microsoft can invest a bit more in this area with few improvements. I am optimistic about future of on-premises experience.

Let’s have a look at number of VM(s) needed/recommended by Microsoft.

Can we reduce the numbers...?

Yes we can, practically that is possible and many have done so for low tiers (Don't try for production, please).

Few points that we should keep in mind when it comes to reducing number of VM(s) are as under.

• No two nodes of same type can be installed on single VM. So don’t try that; better than, wasting time. For example you don’t want to try to install all three Orchestrators on a single VM. The configuration will not allow to do so. You may face issues if you try so.
• Don’t install MR on same server as AOS. There is some issue with GUID that you may face, if you try to put MR with AOS. Better is to keep MR on a single/separate VM.
• Don’t try to install any applications (AOS, Orchestrator, MR or SSRS) on AD. The purpose of AD is AD only. I tried this few months ago, for experimental purpose and following was the screenshot, after hours of hard work.

Please don’t laugh, I know you are, after having a look of above screenshot; part of learning, it was. :)

• You may put combination of AOS with Orchestrator and this can make you save 3 VM(s).
• You may allocate single server for MR, compared to two, which can save you 1 VM.
• You may put SQL in simplest mode, without any Active/Passive cluster or any other high-availability modes. That should work fine with low tier deployment.
• You may manage ADFS and AD on same machine for low tiers.
• You may manage storage on any existing system.

Ultimately we can reduce the number of VM(s) for non-production systems or any lower tiers. Reducing number of VM(s) for production will not stop you doing so; be careful of Performance reasons and follow the Microsoft recommendations.

You can use same active directory for multiple installations, such as you can use that for your Sand and Prod. So having one powerful VM for active directory should be fine for multiple installations of same implementation.

Though at this time the SSRS report viewer has been categorized as “Features not intended for use in on-premises deployments” it is a need. An enterprise level application sounds better with report viewing capabilities. Apparently it’s a matter of saving few clicks , when its being advised to save report as PDF and then view it, but it can have major impact on users’ of the system.