Azure for whom? Lessons from the early days of Dynamics NAV in the Microsoft cloud

When Microsoft announced the availability of Dynamics GP 2013 and NAV 2013 on Azure, some value-added resellers (VARs) had already taken the plunge as early adopters.  Microsoft's first step toward "ERP in the cloud" gives virtually any Dynamics GP or NAV partner the opportunity to become a hosting provider, with all the opportunities and risks that go along with it.

Abakion, a long time Dynamics NAV partner based in Denmark, is one of the first VARs to embrace the Azure deployment model. Their managing director, Kenneth Kryger Gram, told us in an interview that the decision to host their clients' NAV 2013 solutions on virtual machines in Windows Azure Infrastructure Services has worked out well for the company and its clients in a number of ways, from pre-sales activities through the deployment process and in post go-live support.

"It was interesting for us to see performance and deployment.  It has proven to be simple and easy," says Kryger Gram. He sees Abakion's opportunity to manage its customers' Azure-hosted deployments as an opportunity to generate more business, increase revenue, and help customers put their ERP investments toward functional and process improvements rather than IT infrastructure. 

Better Dynamics NAV tools

With Feature Pack 1 of NAV 2013, Microsoft has introduced new server scripts that will significantly improve the experience of deploying NAV 2013 on Windows Azure, says Kryger Gram.  So while Microsoft server and network expertise is still required, the essential process of deploying a NAV solution, from creation of the virtual machine to installing SQL ...