This article examines several critical factors to keep in mind when determining whether to upgrade and move to Microsoft Dynamics 365.
Originally published in Q3 2017 D365UG/CRMUG Magazine
There’s been a lot of hype in the last few months about moving to the cloud. Microsoft has continued to build on their investments in Microsoft Dynamics 365, Office 365, and Azure. The following items should be considered when deciding on upgrading and moving your Microsoft Dynamics system.
Upgrade Versus Redeployment
When contemplating an upgrade, especially when you are many versions behind, it is a good time to consider upgrading or redeploying. An upgrade will take you from one version to the next, or through many versions to the latest. Your data and customizations will be upgraded along the way (if they are supported; otherwise, you
might need some fixes).
For the most part, your system will work like it did in the previous version (Microsoft Dynamics 2013 and on). Older Users (from Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 to 2011) will have some adoption issues with the new navigation and shortcuts, which will require a bit of training.
A redeployment option may be suggested by your consultant, Partner, or IT team. This may be common for Customers that don’t heavily utilize the system often (perhaps they use a Rolodex), adoption or data issues, or older unsupported customizations that are now available out of the box or are no longer needed.
A redeployment would start with a fresh copy of the latest version of Dynamics 365, with then an extract of data from your existing system mapping to the new version and features.
Cloud Versus On-Premises
When considering a move to Dynamics 365, to take advantage of all the new features and options, you will want to want to consider the public cloud version hosted by Microsoft. Why? Over the last few CRM releases, the gap in software functionality between cloud and on-premises has widened significantly. Private cloud versions running on service providers or corporate IT data centers will not have the same feature set today.
In my opinion, the entire on-premises model has shifted. Microsoft is the only game in town for keeping your data in your own data center, and they know it. Therefore, since there is no competition, Microsoft will continue to delay moving features from the cloud to the on-premises solution, which also has the side effect of driving Customers to the cloud. The new licensing model is also in a cloud-only form. So, you will pay monthly for your licenses once your EA or agreement expires.
Data Migration Costs
The number one cost in migrating from on-premises to Dynamics 365 is data migration. Depending on the number of entities, data, and customizations in your system, you can easily add hundreds of hours to project. Why? Dynamics 365 currently does not allow you to upload your SQL database directly to the cloud. Until Microsoft releases an option to upload your database, migration will be the only choice.
And since Dynamics 365 drive space comes at premium, this is a great time to consider archiving your data. If you have been on Microsoft Dynamics since 2003 (v4), chances are there’s a ton of data you no longer need. When building your data migration scripts, remember that you can add a data range to archive data.
Keep a local or Azure SQL copy of the original database, and you can easily point Power BI to develop reports to allow searching of older archived data, if needed. Remember that emails are usually already stored in your email server, so don’t duplicate your efforts on keeping historical emails.
Data Data Data
Your data, customizations, and reports will all be impacted. You will carefully need to consider all aspects of your data, how you use it, and at what point can you archive the data without impacting your business or your Customers.
A great way to view your data is by using the SQL Server built-in reports called the Top Table Usage Report. Anyone with SQL admin rights to the database can run this report.
The report will look something like this:
This report can be sorted to show how many records you have in each entity and can be used by your team to help determine the data migration costs.
Access to Internal Systems
Once you make the decision to use the cloud version, you’ll need to review if your current system is integrated with, or accessing data with, your corporate network to show to your Dynamics 365 Users. If so, in order to keep this working within the cloud, you will need to expose this data so it can be viewed from outside your corporate firewall. Since the Microsoft cloud has hundreds of IP addresses, it will be almost impossible to add all the ranges to support a dedicated IP range with your firewall.
Another option will be to build an integration that migrates the data into Microsoft Dynamics CRM, or provides reports that can be run internally that grab data from your internal and external resources.
Security and Certification
No doubt, depending on your company’s business, data security will remain a big concern. Microsoft takes cloud security as a number one priority, spending millions per year on the ever-changing cloud world. Real-time monitoring, reactive analytics, and thread intrusion are just some of the risks.
One of the biggest concerns is managing who has access to the system. Microsoft provided the ability to integrate the cloud and your Dynamics 365 with your Active Directory or Azure AD. This will allow you complete control over who has access to your data, and it allows you to provide single sign-on to your Users across Dynamics 365 and the Office 365 product suite.
Microsoft has been introducing new certifications almost monthly with the latest updates, including adding HIPAA and FedRAMP certifications to the mix. You can find the certifications here.
In closing, while migrating to the cloud can be costly, the benefits will outweigh the cost longer term, while putting you on a platform that’s the best in the industry. This digital transformation is just what your company ordered, and it can allow you to take advantage of the new features, ultimately enabling you to focus on your business and not your IT infrastructure.