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Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Power Platform are pushing serious Azure scale, architects report

by Jason Gumpert
Editor, MSDynamicsWorld.com

Microsoft often alludes to the value of the feedback loop between the business applications group that develops Dynamics 365 and Power Platform products and the core technology teams that power those solutions, from database to operating system to architecture and development. As the products moved from on-premises to cloud in the last decade, that relationship has become even closer as thousands of customers now depend on nearly continuous updates, often performed on their behalf by Microsoft. 

In a new blog post, Silvano Coriani, a Principal Program Manager on the Azure SQL Database team, provided some new stats and perspective on the relationship between business applications, the Azure services on which they now rely, and how the teams have tuned cloud services to support a growing customer base.  

The post includes "[s]ome never before shared details," according to Microsoft CVP Charles Lamanna. And it demonstrates that "engineers from Dynamics and Azure teams have worked hard together," according to Coriani. 

Business apps at scale 

The biggest revelation is the scale that Dynamics 365 and Power Platform now requires in Microsoft's cloud operations. The services use over a million Azure SQL databases to run the Common Data Service (CDS) instances that underly so much of the business apps suite today. Even apps that do not use CDS as their primary backend, like D365 Finance, Supply Chain Management, Business Central, and Commerce, may still deploy CDS instances to power dual-write scenarios or to enable the creation of Power Apps and Power Automate flows that work with the core ERP systems. 

The post dives into a range of the decisions that Microsoft teams have made in architecting CDS and how the complexities of transactionally intense solutions running at scale made some of these decisions so consequential. Here are a few highlights: 

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About Jason Gumpert

As the editor of MSDynamicsWorld.com, Jason oversees all editorial content on the site and at our events, as well as providing site management and strategy. He can be reached at jgumpert@msdynamicsworld.com.

Prior to co-founding MSDynamicsWorld.com, Jason was a Principal Software Consultant at Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC), where he implemented solutions, trained customers, managed software development, and spent some time in the pre-sales engineering organization. He has also held consulting positions at CSC Consulting and Monitor Group.

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