SQL Server topology [AX 2012]

SQL Server topology [AX 2012]

Collapse All

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012

Updated: February 17, 2012

Applies To: Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Feature Pack, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012

The choice topology of the Microsoft SQL Server environment that supports Microsoft Dynamics AX is driven primarily by requirements for availability and performance.

General topology recommendations

We recommend the following guidelines as a baseline for your topology:

Follow the documented best practices for SQL Server.
Use a dedicated server that is running SQL Server 2008 R2 or SQL Server 2008.
Use a single instance of SQL Server that is dedicated to running the Microsoft Dynamics AX production database.
Store your test and development databases on a separate server from the production database.

Availability recommendations

SQL Server provides several options that can help you achieve high availability: failover clustering that uses Microsoft Cluster Service, SQL Server database mirroring, and SQL Server log shipping. Of these options, failover clustering provides the least amount of downtime. However, replication, database mirroring, and log shipping can satisfy other requirements. For example, these options can be used to provide a reporting environment that can reduce the load on your production server. The high availability option that you select for your implementation of Microsoft Dynamics AX depends on your availability requirements, a cost/benefit analysis, and the risk tolerance of your organization.

Important
Before you select a high availability option for SQL Server, we strongly recommend that you contact your value-added reseller (VAR) or Microsoft Support to make sure that the option that you want to use is supported.

Determine and document your availability needs carefully, and test the solution that you select to make sure that it provides the expected availability. The following table lists supported and unsupported high availability configurations.

High availability configuration	Support status
Failover clustering active/passive	Supported
Log shipping	Supported
Transactional replication	Not supported. To support replication, all tables in the database need to have a primary key. In Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, there are some tables in the database that do not have a primary key.
Snapshot replication	Not supported. To support replication, all tables in the database need to have a primary key. In Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, there are some tables in the database that do not have a primary key.
Database mirroring	Supported
Merge replication	Not supported, because complex resolution is required to guarantee data integrity.
Failover clustering active/active	Not supported. Microsoft Dynamics AX was not tested running on an Active/Active cluster. Although you may be able to run Microsoft Dynamics AX on an Active/Active cluster, it is not a supported configuration.

We recommend that you deploy an active/passive failover cluster, because a failover cluster does not require a restart of the Application Object Server (AOS) service. The following figure shows a SQL Server failover topology.

When you use SQL Server failover clustering, note the following behavior:

The failover is transparent to AOS, and the service typically does not require a restart.
In-process transactions are rolled back, and the user may have to reenter data that was being entered at the time of failure.

Note
Active/passive failover clustering is tested and supported. However, active/active clustering is not supported because of the complex conflict resolution that is required to guarantee data integrity.

Caution
Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services and Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services are not supported in a failover cluster.

For more information about availability options, see:

Performance recommendations

The performance of the database can significantly affect overall Microsoft Dynamics AX performance.

To achieve the best performance, the SQL Server environment and storage subsystem must be correctly configured. For more information, see Configure SQL Server and storage settings.