Discontinuation of Oracle database support in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012

Microsoft is committed to support the database system that scales to meet customer needs and helps lower the total cost of ownership over time. Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 R2 delivers several breakthrough capabilities that will enable organizations to scale database operations with confidence and improve IT and developer efficiency, as well as enable highly scalable and well-managed business intelligence on a self-service basis for users. Today our customers are selecting Microsoft SQL Server as their database system.


Below are a number of benefits that customers can get by switching from an Oracle to a SQL Server database:
 
Business value


Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 is a complete set of enterprise-ready technologies and tools that help people derive the most value from information at the lowest total-cost-of-ownership. Enjoy high levels of performance, availability, and security; employ more productive management and development tools; and deliver pervasive insight with self-service business intelligence (BI).

Lower the total cost of ownership (TCO)

SQL Server 2008 has a simple tiered SKU licensing model helping provide lower TCO over time, while Oracle 11g requires additional licensing costs for a multiple array of options and add-ins, on top of already high maintenance and support costs. Microsoft SQL Server 2008 provides a data platform with many advantages and business benefits including better security, performance and scalability, developer productivity, and Business Intelligence tools (BI) – all at a lower total cost of ownership.
 
Business Intelligence


Microsoft SQL Server 2008 provides a scalable Business Intelligence platform optimized for data integration, reporting, and analysis, enabling organizations to deliver intelligence where users want it. Microsoft Dynamics AX utilizes the Microsoft Business Intelligence (BI) Platform that comprises offerings from Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Office to empower people with self-service
 
Business intelligence to deliver the right BI tools for the entire organization. Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 will utilize additional, more powerful features of Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services to enable visually richer, more interactive and more flexible reporting and will use Reporting Services as the primary reporting engine. Microsoft SQL Server enables Business Intelligence for everyone in your company by enabling self-service access to data for analysis and team collaboration using familiar Microsoft Office and SharePoint user tools. The seamless interoperability of SQL Server 2008 with Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server and Microsoft Office adds a tremendous productivity gain for your users.


Security

Advanced security features, such as encryption, transparent auditing, and centralized key management, are among industry-leading features and included in SQL Server 2008 Enterprise, while Oracle charges extra for security add-ons.
 
About Migration

The Oracle to Microsoft SQL Server Data Migration Assistant for Microsoft Dynamics AX (Data Migration Assistant) helps you with the migration of data from a Microsoft Dynamics AX Oracle database to a Microsoft Dynamics AX SQL Server database. The Data Migration Assistant supports the following versions of Microsoft Dynamics AX: Microsoft Axapta 3.0, Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0, and 2009.
The Migration Assistant was released in October 2010 and is available for download from the partnersource.

Connector For Microsoft Dynamics AX

 You can now download the connectors for Microsoft Dynamics AX to Microsoft Dynamics CRM from PartnerSource. For now take a look at the following PartnerSource announcement  with associated information and downloads!

Connector for Dynamics AX

Microsoft Dynamics AX '6' Coming This Year

Microsoft plans to roll out the next version of its Dynamics AX enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution in the latter part of this year, the company announced today.

That version, called Microsoft Dynamics AX code-named "6," will succeed the currently available Dynamics AX 2009 flagship product. Microsoft is promising that the new release will have an improved architecture plus the usual integration with other Microsoft products, such as Microsoft Office 2010, SharePoint 2010, SQL Server 2008 R2 and Visual Studio 2010.

With the new release, Microsoft is highlighting a "model-driven layered architecture" in Dynamics AX 6 that will benefit developers and independent software developers (ISVs).
Dynamics AX 6 has a model-driven-layer architecture that will accelerate the application development process for our partners, enabling them to write more quickly, to do less coding and to deliver the solution more quickly," said Crispin Read, general manager of Microsoft Dynamics ERP, in a phone interview. "They [developers] are modifying models vs. writing code -- that's a big new capability, a very significant capability in AX 6."


Read noted that ISVs will be able to use this modeling capability to better extend their products to additional markets. He claimed that the new model-driven layered architecture approach was "unusual" in the ERP software industry. Traditional ERP software products have tended to drift more toward "spaghetti code" when it came to product upgrades and expansions, he claimed.
Earlier versions of Dynamics AX have been based on a layered architecture, but they have not included this modeling capability. The modeling is based on a SQL Server-based model store, Read explained.

"The layered element is really intended to separate the work that is done by the different parties involved providing a customer solution," Read said. "That's very unique, but it's been a fundamental architectural attribute of AX for some time. We certainly improved it; certainly extended it, and we made it much more fine grained in AX 6 through layering. Now, it's model driven in the sense that we now have a SQL Server-based model store, so that there'll be fewer cases where you need to write code to modify or provide application functionality. There will be more cases where you can do that by tweaking the models themselves."

"Application modeling tools enable developers to customize an application using specialized languages that are simpler than a full programming language," explained Robert Helm, managing vice president at the Directions on Microsoft consultancy, in an e-mailed response. "Modeling can make writing customizations simpler than programming, which is how it's done today. Modeling can also make customizations easier to deploy, update and migrate to new application versions than code would be."
Read cited three main benefits for ISVs that will come with the Dynamics AX 6 release. Products will be able to get to market faster, ISVs will be able to expand their marketing and they'll be able to reduce their lifecycle investment costs, he said. Read explained that Microsoft Dynamics AX is targeted toward addressing five markets, including retail, distribution, manufacturing, services and the public sector. The solution initially will be designed for 38 countries