Microsoft Improves Commerce Data Exchange for Retail in Dynamics AX 2012 R3

Microsoft recently made some updates and improvements to Commerce Data Exchange in AX 2012 R3. Retail customers use Commerce Data Exchange for their data replication and management needs between stores, other channels, and headquarters.

The following are some of the changes, as described :

Commerce Data Exchange Architecture

In earlier releases, Synch Service was a Windows service that was installed at headquarters and at stores. In AX 2012 R3, Synch Service has been replaced by two components:

• Commerce Data Exchange: Async Server - part of the asynchronous system that shares data between the Dynamics AX database and channel databases. It is installed at headquarters and communicates with Dynamics AX. Because the service is hosted in IIS (Internet Information Service), you can take advantage of the scalability and reliability features of IIS, such as load balancing.
• Commerce Data Exchange: Async Client - Window client installed at channels and communicates with the channel database.

Database Architecture

In earlier releases, store databases and online channel databases were different from one another. However, in Dynamics AX 2012 R3, store databases, online channel databases, and any other channel-specific databases are all known as channel databases.

Change Tracking

In earlier releases, preactions and actions collected updates to data in the Dynamics AX database. In AX 2012 R3, however, Microsoft SQL Server change tracking is used instead. That means fewer records are created in the Dynamics AX database, and performance is improved because preactions and actions have ...