Table of Contents
Preface. 2
1 Understanding Dynamics AX.. 7
1.1 Dynamics AX Architecture. 7
1.1.1 Dynamics AX and its components. 7
1.1.2 How Dynamics AX manage sessions. 10
1.1.3 Concurrency control within Dynamics AX.. 14
2 Monitoring Hardware, Database and Dynamics AX.. 16
2.1 Hardware Monitoring. 16
2.1.1 Using System Monitor 16
2.1.2 Microsoft Dynamics AX Performance Counters. 22
2.1.3 WCF Performance Counters with Dynamics AX 2012 AOS. 25
2.2 Database Monitoring. 26
2.2.1 Using SQL Server Profiler 26
2.2.2 Using Dynamic Management Views. 39
2.2.3 Finding Current Users and Processes. 44
2.2.4 Decoding the Object Blocking a Process. 45
2.2.5 Selected DBCC Commands. 46
2.3 Monitoring Dynamics AX.. 47
2.3.1 Dynamics AX Trace Parser 47
2.3.2 Windows Event Tracing. 56
2.3.3 WCF Service Trace Viewer Tool 60
2.3.4 Microsoft Visual Studio Profiling Tools. 63
2.3.5 Performance testing for Enterprise Portal (Web Performance Test) 66
2.3.6 Performance Analyzer for Microsoft Dynamics AX (DynamicsPerf) 70
2.3.7 Process Monitor 73
2.4 Database I/O.. 74
2.4.1 SQLIO – Disk Performance Test Tool 74
2.4.2 SQLIOSim – Disk Stress Test Tool 74
2.4.3 Instant File Initialization. 74
2.4.4 Long I/O Requests. 75
3 Setup and Configuration. 76
3.1 Input/Output (I/O) Configuration. 76
3.1.1 Recommended Redundant Array of Independent disks (RAID) configuration 76
3.1.2 Typical I/O Performance Recommended Range. 77
3.2 Files, and Filegroups. 78
3.3 Tempdb Placement and Tuning. 78
3.4 Data and Log File Sizing. 80
3.5 Recovery Models. 81
3.5.1 Simple Recovery Model 81
3.5.2 Full Recovery Model 81
3.5.3 Bulk-Logged Recovery Model 82
3.6 Database Options. 82
3.6.1 Read Committed Snapshot Isolation (RCSI) 82
3.6.2 Asynchronous Statistics Update. 83
3.6.3 Parameterization. 84
3.6.4 Auto Update Statistics. 86
3.6.5 Auto Create Statistics. 87
3.7 SQL Server Configurations. 87
3.7.1 Installation Considerations. 87
3.7.2 Hyper-Threading. 88
3.7.3 Memory Tuning. 88
3.7.4 Important sp_configure Parameters. 91
3.8 Network Protocols and Pagefile. 94
3.9 Network Capacity. 95
3.10 TCP Chimney. 95
3.11 Dynamics AX Setup. 96
3.11.1 Statement Compilation. 96
3.11.2 Cache of number sequences. 96
3.11.3 Configuring HTTP Compression in IIS. 97
3.11.4 Use AppFabric for NLB topology. 100
4 Common Dynamics AX Performance Problem.. 102
4.1 Large number of roundtrips to the database. 102
4.2 High Processor Utilization. 102
4.3 Disk I/O Bottlenecks. 104
4.4 Memory Bottlenecks. 105
4.5 High memory usage when run in IL(Batch mode) 106
4.6 Blocking and Deadlocking Issues. 106
4.6.1 Extensive logging. 107
4.7 Parameter Sniffing. 108
4.7.1 Dealing with bad parameter sniffing. 109
4.7.2 Turn off parameter sniffing. 112
5 Optimizing Dynamics AX SQL Statement 114
5.1 SQL Pre-processing in Microsoft Dynamics AX.. 115
5.2 Statement cache & Buffer size. 117
5.2.1 Statement cache (Open cursors) 117
5.2.2 Maximum Buffer size. 118
5.2.3 Statement with ForceLiteral keyword. 120
5.3 Using Hints. 120
5.3.1 Index Hints. 120
5.3.2 Plan Guides. 121
5.3.3 ODBC API Server Cursor Performance Enhancements. 122
5.3.4 AOS Authorization. 124
5.4 Trace flags. 124
5.4.1 Controlling Trace Flags. 125
Implementing Trace Flags. 125
5.4.2 Monitoring Trace Flags. 128
5.4.3 Trace Flags Recommended for use with Dynamics AX.. 128
6 SQL Server Performance and Compliance Optimizations for Dynamics AX.. 130
6.1 Resource Management 130
6.1.1 Resource Governor 131
6.2 Backup and Storage Optimization. 132
6.2.1 Backup Compression. 132
6.2.2 Data Compression. 133
6.3 Auditing and Compliance. 138
6.3.1 Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) 138
6.3.2 SQL Server Audit 140
6.4 Performance Monitoring and Data Collection. 142
6.4.1 Data Collector and Management Data Warehouse. 143
6.4.2 Memory Monitoring DMVs. 145
6.4.3 Extended Events. 146
6.5 Query Performance Optimization. 149
6.5.1 Plan Freezing. 149
6.5.2 Lock Escalation. 149
6.6 Hardware Optimizations. 150
6.6.1 Hot Add CPU.. 150
6.6.2 NUMA.. 151
7 Database Maintenance. 152
7.1 Managing Indexes. 152
7.1.1 Index-Related Dynamic Management Views. 152
7.2 Detecting Fragmentation. 156
7.3 Reducing Fragmentation. 157
7.4 Statistics. 159
7.4.1 AUTO_CREATE_STATISTICS and AUTO_UPDATE_STATISTICS. 159
7.4.2 Disabling AUTO_UPDATE_STATISTICS at the Table Level 160
7.4.3 User-Created Statistics. 161
7.4.4 Updating Statistics. 161
7.4.5 Viewing Statistics. 162
7.5 Controlling Locking Behavior 163
7.5.1 Isolation Levels. 164
7.5.2 Lock Granularity. 164
7.5.3 Lock Escalations. 165
7.5.4 Lock Escalation Trace Flags. 167
7.5.5 Deadlocks. 168
7.6 Dedicated Administrator Connection (DAC) 172
8 Infrastructure & Hyper-V Virtualization. 174
8.1 Hardware Sizing. 174
8.1.1 Database Server 174
8.1.2 Application Server hosting AOS. 175
8.1.3 Web Server hosting Enterprise Portal 176
8.1.4 Batch Servers. 176
8.1.5 Remote Desktop Session Host Server (RDSH Server) 177
8.1.6 Firewall 177
8.2 Sizing Methodology. 178
8.2.1 Work load. 178
8.2.2 Sizing guidance for each components (AX 2012) 180
8.2.3 Sizing guidance for each components (AX 2009) 182
8.3 Dynamics AX Server Virtualization. 184
8.3.1 Virtualization Benefits. 185
8.3.2 Hyper-V Virtualization. 185
8.3.3 Hardware Considerations. 185
8.4 Hyper-V Best Practices. 186
8.4.1 DO NOT virtualize SQL Server 187
8.4.2 Increase Network Capacity. 187
8.4.3 Implement Hyper-V Integration Services. 187
8.4.4 Maximize Memory Usage. 187
8.4.5 Minimize OS Overhead. 188
8.4.6 Optimize SCSI and Disk Performance. 188