Best hosting options?

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HI!

We have a Dynamics Navision 2009 R2 database that we currently are hosting on a local server running Windows Server 2008 STD and Microsoft SQL Server 2008. It's been decided that the database should be ported in some form to a cloud service so that all users can access it from anywhere. Does anyone have any recommendations on cost effective ways of accomplishing this, or already experience something like this and provide suggestions or warnings?

Thanks in advance.

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keoma 32,729 on at

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check out these postings

brucemcmillansblog.wordpress.com/.../dynamics-navision-2009-on-windows-azure-navision-in-the-cloud-today

blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/.../dynamics-nav-and-sql-azure

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Alexander Ermakov 28,096 on at

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There are basically four options for this:

1. You keep it on your server in your office and your Internet. Setup the external access (preferably using VPN) so users can access it from anywhere. This would require least expenses to your current solution.

2. You keep it on your server, but you move this server to some datacenter. This allows you not to keep it in your office, and not depend on your Internet provider. However you would need the same setup to allow external access and this would lead to some expenses to store the space in the datacenter.

3. You rent server machine from datacenter (can be physical server of a virtual machine). This option looks more "cloudish" then previous ones. Here the benefit is independency from you hardware, as you just rent it with some level of security (select not less then 99,9% reliability).

4. Best option is to move it to Microsoft Azure (refer to Jonathan's suggestions), as it is simple, convenient and reliable. The only issue here is that it most likely would be the most expensive option, even if you setup scheduling to turn it off automatically for the non-needed periods.

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AJAnsari 5,754 on at

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Jonathan and Alexander have already shared some excellent options. What I'd like to add is that you should consider an upgrade as you plan your budget for the next year - if not sooner.

NAV 2017 (there may be a new version out by the time you decide to upgrade) and the last few versions have been optimized for cloud and WAN deployments, both from a performance perspective (client installed on a workstation while NAV server is in the cloud, with no major impact on latency and performance), and from a security perspective (support for SSL certificates to encrypt traffic between the server and clients). There is also support for Web, Phone and Tablet clients. Finally, NAV 2009 is out of mainstream support, and you do not receive hotfixes for it from Microsoft any longer.

With NAV 2009 hosted, your users will have to connect to NAV using a client installed on a Terminal Server, or published as a Remote App or using Citrix. And you may need a VPN connection to add a layer of security. Compared to NAV 2017, it gives your users a less than ideal experience. Printing, Exporting to Excel / Word, integrating to Outlook etc. are areas where you will most see the difference.

Good luck! I hope this helps. If my response has answered your question, please verify by clicking Yes next to "Did this answer your question?"

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Community Member on at

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Absolutely. I failed to mention in my original message that upgrading from 2009R2 to the most recent version is one of the goals of this project. We're fully licensed for this however our soon to be previous Navision developer is not as proactive as we would like them to be when it comes to keeping the software up to date.

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Community Member on at

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These are very much like the options we're considering. Unfortunately the total cost of Azure (the estimate tool indicates over $1000 per month) will almost certainly outweigh any benefits it might offer. At this time our most likely route will be to utilize a datacenter to lease Rackspace and the required connectivity with our own equipment.

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Alexander Ermakov 28,096 on at

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From my experience I have learned that Azure costs can be minimized if you apply smart usage plan and setup scheduled turn-offs and ons (e.g., for weekends or nights). This also would allow you to handle fluctuations of the load, as using your own server would mean you need to ensure such capacity that would allow to handle your peak maximum loads, which might be costful to have during the non-peak periods. Using Azure you can add or reduce capacity based on your (e.g. seasonal) demands.

But, I would agree that so far Azure is not so cheap even applying scheduling.

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Community Member on at

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Good morning,

I was wondering if you knew of what calculations to use to cost up an Azure (or another provider) hosting service for Nav2017

thanks

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Leiwun 5 on at

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Hello, wanna ask can I use Dynamics in conjunction with other hosting services. That they would be duplicated by each other?

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Renni 960 on at

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Yes

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