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What's New: Services and AIF administration [AX 2012]
Updated: October 12, 2011
Applies To: Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Feature Pack, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012
This topic describes services and the Application Integration Framework (AIF) enhancements in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 for system administrators. For information about what's new for developers, see What's New: Services and AIF for Developers in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012. For more information about the features described in this topic, see the Microsoft Dynamics AX Technical Library.
Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 simplifies the configuration of services and AIF and provides several benefits to system administrators through the following features and enhancements.
This section describes new features and enhancements in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012.
Windows Communication Foundation adapters
This release of Microsoft Dynamics AX provides expanded support for Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) beyond the basic HTTP and HTTPS bindings. The proprietary Microsoft Message Queuing (MSMQ) and BizTalk Server adapters used in the previous releases of Microsoft Dynamics AX are no longer available. Instead, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 provides equivalent functionality through native WCF functionality. However, custom adapters developed by customers and partners using the AIF adapter framework continue to be supported in this release.
Services hosted on the Application Object Server
The Application Object Server (AOS) is the WCF service host for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 services exposed to users and applications on an intranet. To consume services over the Internet, you must host services on Internet Information Services (IIS).
For more information about services, see Services, service operations, and service groups.
IIS services hosted without .NET Business Connector
In the previous release of Microsoft Dynamics AX, IIS-hosted services required .NET Business Connector to communicate with the AOS. In Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, IIS-hosted services use the WCF routing service instead of the .NET Business Connector.
For more information about services, see Services, service operations, and service groups.
Service groups
A developer can create a service group that enables you to group related services together. This feature makes it easier to manage related services for a particular integration scenario.
For more information about service groups, see Services, service operations, and service groups.
Integration ports
In Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, integration ports provide simplified administration of services and AIF. The concept of integration ports replaces AIF endpoints and related concepts used in previous releases of Microsoft Dynamics AX. Each integration port can expose one or more services and each integration port has a unique Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) that uniquely identifies the address of the port.
For more information about the concept of integration ports, see Integration ports.
Support for non-XML files
In Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, you can change inbound documents from any format to the services schema by using Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XLST) or by using a binary transform. You can use external tools, such as the BizTalk Server mapper, to create an XSLT transform. Similarly, you can change an outbound XML document to any format by using XSLT or a .NET assembly-based transform.
Batched messaging
In Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, you can submit large amounts of data by using the batch XML schema. This schema enables you to group single messages into message sets that can be submitted together by using a single XML document. For more information about batched messaging, see Processing batched messages in AIF.
Change tracking
In Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, you can configure the database to keep track of when changes happen at the table level. When so configured, you can use the getChangedKeys service operation to retrieve entity keys for only those documents that have changed based on certain criteria, such as a specified date and time. For more information about how to configure change tracking, see Configuring AIF for change tracking.
Performance improvements in services and AIF
The following list describes enhancements in services and AIF that result in improved performance:
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To achieve scale and redundancy, you can configure AOS servers with the Network Load Balancing (NLB) for Microsoft Dynamics AX services. The AOS-clustering solution affects only the RPC-based connections and does not enable you to load balance Microsoft Dynamics AX services. For more information, see Configuring network load balancing for services.
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Client applications can access services via the WCF runtime without using .NET Business Connector, which was required for services and AIF in previous releases of Microsoft Dynamics AX.
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A deployment on an intranet does not require IIS because services are now hosted on the AOS by default.
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You can host services on IIS for requests originating from the Internet; however, the routing service on IIS dispatches these requests to the AOS host. All service requests, regardless of the origin, are processed on the AOS.
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The services framework uses connection pooling to reduce the overhead of creating and destroying a session on service calls.
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All of the services references are placed in a single web services description language (WSDL) file. The single WSDL enables developers to reuse types when consuming Microsoft Dynamics AX services.
Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 offers a robust and flexible security framework. Users are granted access to Microsoft Dynamics AX based on their assigned role.
Services and AIF rely on WCF for additional security. You can change the WCF configuration to make necessary security settings that are required by Microsoft Dynamics AX services. WCF is responsible for authenticating the user. Service-level authorization is defined by the integration port configuration.
If you want to expose services on the Internet by using the HTTP protocol, you must install the Web services on IIS feature. For more information see Install web services on IIS.
The Initialization checklist provides facilities to set up AIF. This single initialization step includes registering services, registering adapters, and registering basic ports.
Use the Internet Information Services (IIS) Web Deployment Tool to manage multiple sites and web farm scenarios. Download the tool from the Web Deploy page.
In Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, enhancements to the services framework result in significant changes in functionality, configuration, database schema, and document schemas (XSDs). When planning an upgrade from previous releases of Microsoft Dynamics AX, consider the following points.
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You must recompile and test all applications that used the previous release of Microsoft Dynamics AX to work with services in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012.
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Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 replaces the proprietary MSMQ and BizTalk adapters with equivalent functionality available in WCF. You must reconfigure and then recompile any automated integration processes, such as the BizTalk Server orchestration, that used these adapters.
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The upgrade framework will create partially configured integration ports based on existing endpoints. Newly created integration ports will contain data policies and service operations, but you must provide address information and activate the ports. You must configure the integration ports upon successful completion of the upgrade process before you use Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 services and AIF functionality.
The Upgrade Guide provides the information to upgrade from the previous releases of Microsoft Dynamics AX.
The following table describes changes in functionality and configuration of services and AIF in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 that affect the system administrators.
| Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 functionality | Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 functionality | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Configuration is company specific | Configuration is not company specific | In previous releases, each AIF endpoint was associated with a specific company. Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 does not require that you associate integration ports with a specific company. You can use the integration port functionality to restrict service calls to a specific company. For an inbound message, the services framework obtains the company ID from the message header. If the message header does not contain a company ID, AIF uses the default company for the submitting user. |
| AIF endpoint | Integration port | The concept of integration port subsumes AIF endpoints and AIF configuration forms. |
| Data policies are mandatory | Data policies are optional | In previous releases of Microsoft Dynamics AX, you had to manually assign data policies for each endpoint action policy. In Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, configuration of data policies is optional. The default data policy is defined by the service schema that is defined by the service developer. You can use integration ports to enforce data policies. |
