Welcome to Migration Minded,
the Dynamics 365 web series
where we dig into important modernization
considerations with Dynamics AX
and Dynamics CRM experts to help
support your cloud transformation thinking.
My name is Tom Wisniewski,
I'm a Global Product Marketing Manager
for Dynamics 365.
Today, we're tackling some common migration
misconceptions around security, costs,
data migration,
and customizations with seven year
Microsoft MVP, Andre Arnaud de Calavon.
Based in the Netherlands.
Andre has worked in the Dynamics AX space
since 2001 and is currently a Product
Manager for To-Increase, a global ISV.
Hey Andre, how's it going?
Thanks so much for joining us.
Hi Tom, I'm happy to be here.
Thanks for the introduction.
Let's talk about the migrations.
Yeah, absolutely.
So, one reason we hear for not moving to
the cloud is the belief that on premise
systems are actually more secure.
Is that something you hear
when speaking with customers?
Actually Tom,
this is a good question.
About 10 years ago I shared also that
opinion that on-prem might be the way to go
instead of the cloud. It was all
kind of new. I didn't know what really
to expect from the cloud itself.
I was also thinking well wouldn't it be
easier or more secure to do things yourself.
Isn't it just a case that anyone can
access the data when it's in the cloud,
but actually that's not the truth.
Microsoft is doing a lot of work,
at least for their Azure platform,
to make it really secure.
Also, when there are some attacks that
they are able to prevent it and
they exactly know what to do and if
you have your own premise systems
that you think it's safe,
but if there are some computers in the
network connected to the Internet,
then you're at least also just as
subject to any hacker or just an attack.
And I've seen that one at a
customer in the past as well.
But also if you look at
people, they do not really know what the
cloud is, they are just a bit hesitant,
it's just unfamiliar.
They also think that they probably have to
do it all themselves on premise,
but what I see is kind of a mind
shift the last few years that more
people are just looking more and more
on the cloud offerings, but also
because it's just more easy if you
think of just installing
the software in the cloud.
It's much more faster.
Everything is prepared already by Microsoft.
You have to just deploy your service
and it's up and running.
Whereas if you want to do anything on premise
then you have to start with the hardware,
install the operating system,
but also install and configure
the solution for the software.
But then also, you probably might
make some mistakes in some
kind of parameters and just
run into all kinds of performance issues.
Or even if you do the wrong set
up on those servers,
it might be open to Internet
and open to any hacker.
And also when people say: "Well, I don't like
cloud at all." Then I often ask them,
hey, you're using email,
you're using Office 365, so in fact,
that's also already a cloud application.
Yeah, absolutely.
So what about costs?
You know,
when making an upgrade, right?
Cost is always a factor.
How should we be thinking about
costs from the on-prem perspective
to the cloud perspective?
As I said, there are indeed differences.
The components are different,
and if you look at just an on
premise versus in the cloud,
both of them do have a kind of hidden cost.
I will explain that one as well.
But, actually, you have to look at the
full total cost of ownership when
you are comparing the cloud cost
versus on premise. And on the website
from Microsoft, related to migration,
there's a very
nice picture of with icebergs and
things you see just above the surface
for you just to compare the license fee,
the subscription fee, versus
the software licensing cost,
but actually what they are just most
of it just forgets is that there are
also costs related to the implementation,
some customization, training parts.
That's in fact also both
applicable for the clouds,
but also on premise.
But, there might be a bit
of difference in contents.
How to do the implementation?
How do the customizations? If you
look at AX 2012 then you could do some
overlaying which is not possible anymore
in Dynamics 365
you all have to do it based on extensions.
But, also if you look at on
premise there are more costs
Which are often not compared if you
just compare what is more beneficial,
then you have to think of,
for example, the hardware,
the maintenance upgrades and
don't forget you have to use
your own IT personnel for it.
And talking about those IT personnel,
you have to also train them.
Keep them up to date with all new
technologies to ensure that also and
on premise environment stays secure.
So that makes complete sense.
How do we know when we're ready
to make the jump to the cloud?
Well, if you have compared the cost,
there's one thing whether there's
a report from Forrester also
available from the Microsoft site
where they have some examples
where you can also make some comparison
between what would be the cost to
run on premise or just in the cloud,
and it also gives some examples
about the return on investment,
but once you made the decision
to go and migrate,
then there are also several
options to do it in several ways.
You can do just a migration as is,
meaning try to just upgrade
all your customizations and
do a standard data migration,
which also includes all your
transaction history from the
older AX 2012 environment.
But you can also just
look at what is available now in
Dynamic 365 for finance and operations.
There are a lot of new features
added and if you want to take
advantage of them then probably
also need some reconfiguration.
In that case, the process can be a
bit longer and more implementation
time would be required.
However, the features Microsoft added,
just are more cloud enabled
where you can more easily,
connect to other systems or
capture data more easy in the data
lake and start using power BI for
example to create awesome reports.
Once you have looked at the new
features then sometimes, well, most of the
cases you also want to migrate
some of the settings and also your
master data. And in that case you are
not doing the one on one migration,
but you have to just find alternatives
to do it and that might be done by just
gather some data in Excel sheets and
use the data management platform from
from Dynamics 365 or search also for
all other alternatives as if you are
doing some migrations with dynamics
data import and export framework,
that's all based on data entities
Out of the standard. And when you also need
to have some additional custom fields,
you first have to ensure that some
of the customizations are also again
back in that environment when you
really started the data migration.
Sure, so you mentioned a lot about,
we've talked a lot about customizations.
Does having customizations change
the migration process at all?
And how should we--
How are they ultimately represented
in the cloud?
Well, there are multiple options to look at
the code upgrades. Like mentioned,
you can just try to convert
everything like you had before in,
for example, your AX 2012 environments.
However, if you do the upgrades,
if you're ready to go for it,
probably it was based on older
processes which were quite common
in the year 2012 or 2013,
but today there are a lot of new processes,
new options,
so you can just look at how can we do
things different compared to the past.
But also if you think I need this
customization as there is no alternative yet,
then you could think of is it really
possible to do it in the same way?
In the past, I had seen some of the
customizations done in AX 2012
or AX 2009, which were not able
to do it in the exact way in Dynamics
365 because of --
you can't over layer the objects anymore,
but you have to use extensions and
one of the differences, for example,
is that you can't change the primary
key anymore, which was quite
easy to do in an older dynamics
AX environment.
And also if you want to migrate and think
I'm ready to go.
It's also some people or customers
really don't know exactly what
had been customized in the past.
They're lacking some documentation
about what had been customized
and just believe it or not,
sometimes customers are really not aware
that there are any customizations.
To be honest,
I've seen some cases where partners
didn't tell that they changed
something just in favor of
thinking I'm pleasing the customer here.
But, if you did customizations in
the past on the AX 2012 environment
and it was quite hard to also
upgrade to the newer versions
because everything was over layered.
You had to do a lot of code merge and
thankfully, now we all have to do it based on extensions.
That means that if it's extended and
Microsoft comes now with an update,
it's quite easy.
You still have to verify things,
but it's more easy compared to the
past that your customizations will also
work in a newer update from Microsoft.
So what would you say, Andre, are
some of the biggest challenges that
are simplified when moving to the cloud
or with moving to the cloud?
Yeah, this is a very good and
great question there Tom.
In fact,
the biggest challenge
would be that
If you think I want to move one
on one or do bit different, the
most
complex thing to do is just think
a bit more outside of the box.
Just forget about how you did
things in the past.
Look at what's available now today
and also try to reduce as much as
possible the customizations and
probably look at ISP solutions to
replace certain customizations
you did in the past.
Just one example to mention.
Just before I joined To-Increase, I
was also doing implementations, and then for
company in the Netherlands,
they were using a lot of customizations
in their old AX 2009 environment.
We looked at their processes,
looked at how they did things and
they have a lot of connections
with a POS system or a website
or another ticketing system.
And for all of those integrations
they had different solutions how
to move product data.
That with added Dynamics 365.
We looked--Sorry,
we looked at the commerce features.
I thought well,
this might be a replacement
for all of the customizations
which they did in this area,
so one by one we looked at all of
the customizations and at the end we
just try to use as much as possible.
The standard solutions.
We also included some ISV
solutions over there.
Except for some integrations still
and some external document layouts,
they were completely final.
So that means that they were quite
ready -- and go
along with the Microsoft updates.
It's eight times a year,
or at minimum the two times.
And so would you say it's perception
that's really holding people back
from migrating to the cloud?
Now in many cases, yes,
it's not only just the perception,
but also people think they can't
control the cloud and think, well,
I'm not able to just control,
it might be a bit unsafe or also if
you look at some data parts,
the database itself is not accessible,
but that doesn't mean you
don't have access to your data.
There are still options to
just access to data from,
for example power apps or
just get all the data in
your data lake and then
start doing more with your data.
But actually it's good that the
database is secured. That you
can't interact with it because,
in that way,
it also ensures that the business
logic from Dynamics 365 is ensured
without all kind of people trying
to use Excel scripts to manipulate
data or try to correct when
something is really wrong here.
I couldn't agree more.
You know,
changing perception and continuing
education around the cloud is
going to be really important
post pandemic as the benefits,
functionality and even flexibility
that organization can realize in the
cloud is going to start far exceeding
what's even possible on premise,
so really appreciate your perspective there.
If you'd like to follow Andre,
you can do so on Twitter at Dynamics
Pedia or at his blog dynamicpedia.com.
Or on LinkedIn at Andre Arnaud de Calavon.
Really appreciate your time today Andre,
thanks so much for joining us.
Thank you, Tom.
It was my pleasure.
This has been Migration Minded.
If you have migration questions
join our Dynamics 365 migration
community where you can connect with
experts like Andre there and
if you're just getting started,
I highly recommend our resources
around the standard migration
assessment where you can connect
with our fast track team and really
understand what migration looks like
for your organization. Until next time.
Thanks so much.