I have done a few CRM 2011 installations and although the first part of the installation actually starts with making sure the servers are 64 bit and have enough power, the next stage is begging the IT person to give you domain administration privileges so CRM can create some active directory groups.

You have another small leap which is to log onto the clients servers and spend a few times trying to type in the tricky passwords.

You are now ready to set-up the prerequisites of SQL server 2008 installation (probably configuring reports server as well) and adding the pre requisites for the CRM server and making sure IIS is turned on and various other bits and bobs.

One big tip here is to make sure the SQL Server 2008 installation media is either in the DVD drive or available on the server otherwise you won’t be able to configure the SQL Server 2008 installation.

These is a critical part of the install, things not turned on and installed now can cause you hours of head scratching.

Luckily someone absolute hero

George Doubinski

has created a fantastic picturetastic prerequisite installation guide.  The whole installation guide is fantastic and you can find it here.

Server Location [Dynamics CRM, SQL and AD]

Microsoft Dynamics CRM data stores all customer relationship management (CRM) in a database SQL Server. It is important that the computer running SQL Server is located close to the Microsoft CRM server. This means that there must be a high-speed network standing between the team of Microsoft CRM server and the computer running SQL Server to have an efficient performance of Microsoft CRM. An error in the network communications between computers running Microsoft CRM Server and SQL Server can cause data loss and service can no longer be available.

The same applies to Active Directory. Microsoft CRM depends on Active Directory for security information. If you lose communication with Active Directory, Microsoft CRM will not work correctly. If communications with Active Directory are not effective, will be affected the performance of Microsoft CRM. It is therefore important to locate a domain controller for Active Directory on the same network connection speed permanent than computers that run Microsoft CRM and Microsoft SQL Server.

2011 Dynamics CRM installation

Once treated the prerequisites mentioned in the previous section, proceed to install the product, which is described in detail in this section.

We begin with a section devoted to the installation of SQL Server 2008/2008 R2 if the case is not yet installed.

Installing SQL Server 2008/2008 R2

1. If you have not already installed, first install SQL Server 2008 / 2008 R2 64 bits.
   
2. Ensure that the required ports are allowed at the firewall.
   

   Protocol	Port	Description	Explanation
   TCP	135	MSRPC	RPC endpoint resolution.
   TCP	139	NETBIOS-SSN	NETBIOS session service.
   TCP	445	Microsoft-DS	Active Directory Active Directory required for access and authentication.
   TCP	1433	ms-sql-s	SQL Server sockets service. This port is required for access to SQL Server.This number May Be Different if You Have configured your default instance of SQL Server to use a port number or Different Are you using a named instance.
   UDP	123	NTP	Network Time Protocol.
   UDP	137	NETBIOS-NS	NETBIOS name service.
   UDP	138	NetBIOS-dgm	NetBIOS datagram service.
   UDP	445	Microsoft-DS	Active Directory Active Directory service required for access and authentication.
   UDP	1025	Blackjack	DCOM, used as an RPC listener.

3. When installing SQL Server, choose at least the following (assuming that the Reporting Services will run on the same server as SQL)
   
4. Establish the service accounts for the various SQL services. We recommend using a domain account or otherwise, NETWORK SERVICE. Leveraged to configure automatic startup of services and it will be necessary for both SQL Server, SQL Server Agent as the Full Text Indexing are raised at the time of installation of Dynamics CRM.
   
5. Select the authentication mode. With Windows Authentication Mode is sufficient for the purposes of Dynamics CRM as it is used.
   
6. Reporting Services installation must be in native mode (native mode) . This is the only way in which CRM can work.
   
7. Continue the wizard steps to begin the installation and wait for it to complete successfully:
   
8. Corroborated by opening the SQL Server Management Studio that everything is OK, they are the basis for Reporting Services and SQL Server Agent up:
   

Installing pre-requisites in Dynamics CRM server 2011

1. If IIS (Internet Information Services) is not installed on Windows Server 2008 server, add the role Web (IIS) as shown below: (if you do not see this option when you start your server, you can add new roles by clicking on Start-> Administrative Tools-> Server Manager )
   
2. Among the components of IIS, select ‘ASP.net’. It is likely that a new dialog appears asking for confirmation to add other roles required for this.
   
3. Also select ‘Management Service’ and ‘IIS 6 Management Compatibility’ under ‘Management Tools’ and ‘Windows Authentication’ under ‘Security’
   
4. “IIS 6 Management Compatibility ‘ is required to register and raise the service ‘IIS Admin’ required by the installation of Dynamics CRM.

   Proceed with the installation until the end of it successfully ..
   
   

5. If Indexing Service is not registered as a service, we install it and raise it as follows: Start-> Administrative Tools-> Server Manager
   
6. Select the role ‘File Services’
   
7. In the next step, choose the service ‘Indexing Service’ under ‘Windows Server 2003 File Services “
   
8. Continue the wizard to successfully complete the installation:
   
   
9. If previous installations were correct (these components are already installed), should have the following installed services and raised:
   • IIS Admin Service
   • Indexing Service
   • World Wide Web Publishing
     
     
     These 3 services are required to be installed and erected at the time of installation.