Here is one question my customers ask me every time I do a Dynamics architecture assessment:

"How much storage space do I allocate for the database files?"

Well my answer - "Think Spindles*.  Not Space!"

Reason -"PERFORMANCE"

A Spindle here refers to one physical disk.

With the new age disks available in storage sizes ranging from 73 GB to 500 GB and more, customers tend to think that they could live with just two or three disks for their ERP or CRM databases.

While that can take care of your database growth, it does not necessarily ensure performance all the time!

More the Spindles, better the Input/output (I/O) performance

With ERP/CRM Implementations, what is more important than storage space is I/O performance.    Chances are, owing to the multiple transactions being triggered against the database, you will run into disk contention issues wherein your pending operations get queued up.  So, even if a particular user transaction needs just 1 byte of data from the disk, it will have to wait in the queue for other operations to complete.

Therefore, it makes a lot of sense to have multiple spindles for a single data or log file with the SQL Database.  That way, you are increasing the I/O capacity at the Disk level.  Multiple spindles operating on a data file means you will have a smaller queue.  This ensures your transactions get the data they need faster with less wait times resulting in enhanced performance.  The same concept applies to write transactions as well.

How many Spindles or Disks should I allocate?

Well, determining exactly how many spindles you would need for your data and log files is an inexact science.   It highly depends on the transaction volumes expected.   There are various methods out there to arrive at this number.  Our Dynamics Product teams have released benchmark hardware test results from where we can take guidelines on sizing the number of spindles for typical deployments. 

Following are some findings from our product team testing:

 Source: CRM 4.0 Suggested Hardware for Deployments up to 500 concurrent users

 Source: AX 4.0 Hardware Requirements for Deployments up to 250 concurrent users

 Source: NAV 5.0 Hardware Requirements for Deployments up to 250 concurrent users

How do I know if there is Disk Contention?

There are a couple of PerfMon counters that you could monitor to identify disk contention issues and increase spindles as required.

• PhysicalDisk: % Disk Time
• PhysicalDisk: Avg. Disk Queue Length

"PhysicalDisk: % Disk Time" counter monitors the percentage of time that the disk is busy with read/write activity. If the "PhysicalDisk: % Disk Time" counter is high (more than 90 percent), check the "PhysicalDisk: Current Disk Queue Length" counter to see how many system requests are waiting for disk access. The number of waiting I/O requests should be sustained at no more than 1.5 to 2 times the number of spindles that make up the physical disk.

• Less than 2 plus the number of spindles is an excellent value.
• Less than double the number of spindles is a good value.
• This requires further investigation of the disk transfer time in order to see whether disk queue length would actually impact the system.
• Less than triple the number of spindles is a fair value.
• Generally not an issue if seen for period of 5-10 seconds

The suggested resolution when you see this kind disk contention issues would be to:

• Use a faster disk drive (Please note that the usual recommendations we make in our assessments is to use 10K or 15K RPM disks)
• Add more spindles

With Dynamics deployments, Good I/O performance can be considered to be directly proportional to the number of spindles being dedicated for SQL Database and Log files.  So, "Think Spindles.  Not Space!"

It's been almost 2 years since I've blogged on Dynamics CRM. I was with the Presales Technical Support team then - working on Microsoft CRM version 1.2 and 3.0 extensively.

As a Consultant now with Microsoft Consulting Services, thought I should get back to the blog thingy as there is always some learning we all have to share.

So this time around it will not just be CRM but AX and NAV as well.  Focusing more on Implementation Consulting practices around these solutions - Analysis, Architecture/Design, Deployment and the like.

Cheers!

pk

I was on call with a partner from EMEA today.  He was worried about performance issues he is facing with his CRM system.

I strongly recommend every CRM implementation to be followed by Performance tuning as documented here:

Optimizing the Performance of Microsoft CRM 3.0

Best,

pk

Thanks to Ben for posting this article.

Now you can track the actual date of the email than just the Email promotion date.

From Ben's Blog...

If I had a nickel.... Date an email is promoted...

Now this is a question that comes up all of the time... It goes something like this... Ben, why when I promote emails...more

Thanks to Dominic for this detailed post on Exchange 2007 Compatibility with CRM 3.0.

It has been a definite pain for partners selling Exchange 2007 along with CRM 3.0.  But here is the reason why it is tough to make them work together without Exchange 2003:

CRM 3.0 and Exchange 2007 Compatibility by Dominic Pouzin

Best,

pk 

I came across this msreadiness webinar on Sales Best Practices for CRM and belive me it is a good one!  Mark Krinhop outlines the bestpractices providing tips & tricks that help you close a successful CRM sale.

Check out:  Sales Best Practices for Microsoft Dynamics CRM

A question coming up time and again.  I am not sure if this is already documented somewhere in some form but no harm blogging this information here even if it is already available :-)

How does CRM modify the Active Directory?

CRM 1.2 use to be very much dependent on Active Directory.  We used to have even Business Units created in CRM reflected as Organizational Units in Active Directory.  Tough times!

With CRM 3.0, CRM has become less dependent on Active Directory.  There are only two integration points I could think of:

1. Firstly, During Installation, there are four security groups created in AD that allow the installation user (with Domain Administrator rights) to continue the installation across the Platform components like SQL, AD, IIS and Exchange.
2. Secondly, For User Authentication.  Every User in CRM needs access to specific componenents like SQL Reporting and the Database views. A couple of groups in AD take care of this.

A description of the four Security Groups:

PrivUserGroup

The one thing that Adminstrators are usually concerned about:

1. "Does CRM modify the Active Directory Schema?"

NO.  Neither CRM 1.2 nor CRM 3.0 modify the Active Directory Schema.  So no worries! 

2. "Domain Administrator privileges for a user installing CRM is absolutely a 'No-No'.  Is there a way out?"

Yes.  You can install CRM 3.0 without Domain Admin privileges.  But this would require pre-creating the security groups and 'command-line only' installation pointing to xml configuration files.  More information here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/908984.

I hope this information comes in handy whenever we talk about CRM impact on Active Directory.

Best,

pk

at 9/26/2007 10:00 AM PDT 

This session provides administrators and IT professionals who are experienced using and supporting a Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 environment a good understanding of how to integrate Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007). You will also learn about various CRM web parts available in the Microsoft Site.

After completing this session, you will be able to:

• Describe the scenarios where CRM 3.0 and MOSS 2007 integration can be used.
• Install and configure CRM List web part and trust for delegation scenarios.
• Display a SharePoint Document Library within a CRM forms.
• Use Page Viewer web part to display CRM pages in MOSS site.
• Install and configure Report Viewer and Report Explorer web parts to pull CRM Reports in MOSS site.
• Use the RSS viewer web part in MOSS to pull CRM data
• How to create a CRM dashboard using SharePoint 2003.

Click Here to Register

I was just going through this blog of Rehman Gul.  Pretty neat documentation on CRM-SharePoint BDC Integration. 

http://rehmangul.wordpress.com/2007/05/08/ms-crm-and-sharepoint-2007-integration/ 

Regards, pk

A very frequent question from partners and customers... 

• CRM 3.0 Exchange Router CANNOT be installed on Exchange 2007.
• CRM 3.0 Exchange 2007 Router Update CANNOT be installed on an Exchange 2007 Server.  It can only deploy Server Side rules to Exchange 2007 mailboxes when installed on a Exchange 2003 Server.  Fine.
• If Exchange 2007 is already deployed, then you CANNOT install Exchange 2003 Server in that Forest.  So there doesn't seem to be a way to install CRM Router on an Exchange 2003 server if Exchange 2007 is already deployed for the organization.

So what are my options?

Issue:

Exchange 2007 is already deployed.  CRM Exchange Router cannot be installed on a Ex2007 box and hence Ex2003 is to be deployed in a different forest.  What is the best practice in deploying this setup.

Resolution:

Here is something you could try:

1.       Build a new forest

2.       Deploy CRM and Exchange in the new forest

3.       Build a two-way trust between the two forests

4.       Add all CRM users to the MSCRM system that has been deployed in the new forest

5.       Install CRM Exchange Router on the Exchange 2003 system (that is in the new forest)

6.       Use the latest Exchange Rule Deployment update from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=f7656f0f-4195-4a7d-b654-2786787e1422&displaylang=en and deploy the rules to all the Exchange 2007 mailboxes.

Well, I guess we need to live like this for only a few more months.  Hoping to see something from the product team that will take care of this issue in the next version.

Regards,  pk.

Microsoft® invites you to attend a free web seminar on Tuesday, June 19, 2007, 11:00 a.m. – noon Pacific Time, to hear how the company is advancing the state of the art in CRM:

Using Microsoft Dynamics CRM and the Federated Model for Consolidated Pipeline Forecasting and Reporting.

Each business unit in a diversified enterprise has its own nuances. Sound, timely decisions about sales, marketing, customer support, merchandising, supply chains, inventory levels, manufacturing, and product lifecycles are driven by customized CRM solutions that capture those nuances. 

But the single, integrated enterprise data view that reveals business pipeline health, drives forecasting and informs cross-division management depends on consolidated data.  

How can today’s innovative enterprises achieve both requirements?

Join this webcast to learn how Microsoft is employing a federated model to enable business unit flexibility while synchronizing data to a central application. Executing this model:

• Allows line-of-business flexibility
• Supports corporate oversight
• Enables continued use of installed Siebel solutions until the appropriate time comes for replacement.

Web seminar attendees will also hear how Microsoft‘s deployment approach made it possible to get the federated model solution up and running quickly.

Come hear how Microsoft Corporation has increased user adoption and productivity of several internal sales forces by implementing Microsoft Dynamics CRM at the business unit level, connecting back to the corporate investment in Siebel.

Register and Know more about the event here.

This link explains in detail how you could make use of the Fax Router Integration in CRM 3.0

CRM 3.0 SBE FAX Integration

http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/crm/using/sales/sbefax.mspx#ERE

It talks about Routing Faxes, Creating and adding the Cover Page and Requirements for FAX Integration.

Regards,

pk

I see a few partners asking how to go about setting Fiscal Year settings and a few more wanting to know what impact it has with the application.  So I decided to write-up a bit on this topic.

Fiscal Year Settings in CRM 3.0

Fiscal Year settings basically provide you the capability to report on Sales Quota for every CRM Sales User. Effectiveness of your Sales Force can be measured with Sales Quotas.

Fiscal Year settings have to be set to be able to use the Sales Quota feature in CRM.  Fiscal Period options once set cannot be changed.  So you need to take extra care when settings these options in CRM.  Double-check before saving the options for Fiscal period.

There are five templates available to configure the Fiscal Period:

• Monthly
• Quarterly
• 4 Weekly
• Semi annual
• Annual

Fiscal Year Display in the application can be controlled by two dropdowns available in the Fiscal Year Settings Web Dialog:

• Fiscal Year and
• Name Based on

'Fiscal Year' controls how the Fiscal Year is presented in the application viz.

Format  -  Example

• yyyy  -  2007
• Yy  -  07
• FY yyyy  -  FY 2007
• FYyyyy  -  FY2007
• FY yy  -  FY 07
• FYyy  -  FY07

'Name Based On' controls how the company might want to name or represent their Financial Year.  For example, if the Fiscal Year of the Company starts from April, 2006 and runs till March 2007, then the company may either call that as FY06 or FY07.  Based on how they want to name it, you can configure this option to use Start Date or End Date.

‘Fiscal Period’ is used to configure how the fiscal period is denoted in the application.  The options include:

• P1
• Period 1
• Q1
• Quarter 1
• M1
• Month 1
• S1
• Semester 1

‘Display As’ defines how the combined representation of fiscal year and fiscal period would be.  The choices available are:

• P1 FYyy (with space)
• P1FFyy (without space)
• P1-FFyy (with hyphen)
• P1/FFyy (with slash)

Sales Quotas and their Usage:

Sales Quotas are used to measure the productivity of a salesperson every fiscal period.   Sales Quotas can be assigned to Sales Users via the ‘User Settings’ option under ‘Business Unit Settings’.  Quotas can also be managed from within ‘Salespersons with Quotas’ under ‘Business Unit Settings’

Unfortunately, there is no report available in CRM 3.0 that can display Sales Quota information for a user out-of-the-box.  We can write a custom SQL Reporting Services Report that pulls this information from the ‘UserFiscalCalendarBase’ table in the MSCRM database.

That sounds weird!  Yeah, but I am not sure why this report is not available in CRM 3.0.  It was available with CRM 1.2 though.

Regards,

pk

I came across this cool stuff that helps PMs while working on a CRM Project.  Invoke systems has developed a set of Visio Shapes for CRM 3.0

You might want to try it at http://www.invokesystems.com/cs/blogs/mscrm/archive/2006/09/25/80.aspx

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0-Exchange E-mail Router Update

is available for download at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=f7656f0f-4195-4a7d-b654-2786787e1422&displaylang=en.

Please Note: