A Business Case for Windows Azure and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011: Better Together (Part One)

The following article was originally published on MindtheCloud.net.

Mindthecloud.net is starting series of articles about Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Azure aimed at popularizing some of the Azure architectural patters that can be utilized with Dynamics CRM. I believe that Azure is complimentary to some XRM-based solutions and we can easy leverage some cloud capabilities that will allow us to build more effective, scalable, flexible, and innovative new solutions that deliver new business value.  This series of articles will focus primarily on helping users, partners, architects, and developers understand business cases and technical scenarios where Azure services are useful, and show how you can use them in your own solutions.

I'm not going to write an introduction to Azure here; there are a lot of books and MSDN articles which talk in details about every available Windows Azure service, just go to the Azure Developer Center to find the resources you need to get started.  Instead, let's dive into the first business case!

Business Problem

Company XYZ is using Dynamics CRM 2011 as system for creating orders. Dynamics CRM is hosted online for this particular scenario, though it doesn't really matter where Dynamics CRM is hosted for this scenario. Company XYZ has a business partner that fulfills their orders in two branches in two different locations. Their partner has a business application that has to be hosted on premise in one of the locations where the stock is kept. Company XYZ has decided that every 2 hours all orders created should be transferred to their business partner, so we need secure, reliable communication between CRM and this on-prem ...