1. About BI4Dynamics FO installation #
1.1. Infrastructure and application installations #
Azure VM hosts SQL Server that is used for Data Warehouse in Modelling stage. Virtual Machine can be paused for most of the day when data is not being processed in BI4Dynamics Data Warehouse. Data Warehouse is built within a couple of minutes to a couple of hours depending on:
- region of the resources
- machine capacities in terms of CPU and Memory
Finance and Operations database size
2. Create Azure SQL Virtual Machine #
2.1. Create Azure SQL #
2.1.1. Login to Azure portal
Login to Azure portal: https://portal.azure.com/#home
2.1.2. Create VM as Azure SQL Service
Search for Azure SQL and select the following resource:
Note: do not use Virtual machine icon as that will install VM without SQL server pre-installed.
Click on Create:
Select SQL Server 2022 Standard on Windows Server 2022 and click Create:
On the Basics tab, select the region as your FO environment and make sure the correct image is selected:
In the same tab, you will need to specify the Size of the virtual machine and Administrator credentials:
By clicking on See all sizes, a new window will open:
Select the size of the virtual machine based on the hardware guide below:
- CPU: 4 – 8 Intel® processors or equivalent (at least 2GHz)
- The more cores the better as the SSIS option can run parallel on as many cores as there are available. Using SSIS option can speed up processing Stage and Data warehouse by 30 to 50%.
- RAM: minimum recommendation:
- 16 GB RAM for FO database size < 50 GB32 GB RAM for FO database size 100 … 250 GB64 GB RAM for FO database size 250 … 500 GB128 GB RAM for FO database size 500… 1000 GB256 GB RAM for FO database size 1000…2000 GB384 GB RAM for FO database size 2000…4000 GB
- 512 GB RAM for FO database size > 4000 GB
The size of FO database can be checked in Power Platform Admin Center under Capacities:
The tab Disks can be set with the following values:
Under the Networking tab, create a new Virtual network or select an existing based on policy requirements. The port RDP (3389) should be allowed for remote access to the server:
The values on Management, Monitoring, and Advanced can be left under default configurationor changed according to customer needs and policy requirements.
Under SQL Server Settings tab,
- SQL Connectivity select Public (Internet)
- SQL Authentication select Enable (Login name and password from VM is populated automatically)
- click Change configuration and select the setup configuration and size of your SQL data disks
(it will open a separate window with the configuration settings)
Default VM disk configuration comes with 4 disks:
- C: 128 GB for operating system (default option in VM SKU)
- D: 1 TB for temporary files (default option in VM SKU)
- F: 1 TB for SQL data (default option in VM SQL installation)
- G: 1 TB for SQL log (default option in VM SQL installation)
Minimum required disk space depends on the size of the FO database is:
- 1.25 x size of Dynamics FO database used when no SSIS option is used
- 2 x size of Dynamics FO database used with SSIS option is used
SSIS options need more space as more tables are processed at the same time and more hard drive space is needed for temporary calculations. As the result, the size of BI4Dynamics DW will be about 30- 50% of the FO database. If possible, use an SSD hard drive, which processes data about 30 – 50 % faster than standard 15k disks.
Check which disk size you need and change it accordingly:
Click on Tags and leave default values or change it according to the needs.
Click on Review + create to validate the setup of the VM:
Click Create to create your VM and wait until the deployment of the resource is complete:
You have successfully created VM.
2.2. Configure DNS name and RDP for Virtual Machine #
2.2.1. Set up DNS name #
Navigate to Virtual Machine and click Configure next to DNS name:
Enter DNS name and click Save (hint: name can be the same as virtual machine name):
Our demo DNS name is vm-bi4d-demo.westeurope.cloudapp.azure.com:
2.2.2. Setup RDP connection #
Click on Connect on header toolbar or select Connect tab on the left:
Both options will lead to the new page.
Under Native RDP and Download RDP File:
You have downloaded RDP file to Downloads folder on your local computer:
You have successfully set up DNS name and RDP file.
2.3. Connect to Virtual Machine #
Click on RDP file that you have saved to download folder in previous steps
A new window will pop up. Click Connect:
Enter administrator account credential that you have entered for this VM and click OK:
A new window will pop-up.
Check Don’t ask me again for a connection to this computer and click Yes to connect:
Now you should be connected to VM with RDP:
You are connected to VM by using RDP access.
