Hyper-V has many new performance improvements, one of them is a new virtual hard drive format called VHDX.  

The main new features that we will find of interest are:

•         Protection against data corruption during power failures
•         Performance improvements for dynamic and differencing disks
•         TRIM support allowing unused disk space to be reclaimed

For more information please see the Overview on TechNet.

With the inclusion of Hyper-V in Windows 8 and the fact that most demo users will be running VM’s on laptops; these are worthwhile improvements.

Getting Started:

First you will need to be running Windows 8 with Hyper-V feature installed or the Windows Server 2012 RC with the Hyper-V role enabled.

The conversion process also requires enough free hard disk space to copy the existing VHD file to the new VHDX file. 
This will require between 75 and 133 GB of space depending on if you choose to keep the disk dynamic or switch to fixed.

If you do not have enough space on your local drive you can use an external drive for the conversion and move the VHDX file over later once it is safe to delete the old VHD.

The Dynamics AX Demo VM must be shut down during the conversion process.
Please be aware that the VHDX format is only compatible with Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012.

Configuration

Step 1.  Open the Hyper-V Manager from Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012

Step 2.  Select “Edit Disk” from the Actions pane

Step 3.  On the initial screen click the “Next” button, you will need to know where the VHD file is located on your machine.

Step 4.  Browse out to find the VHD file,  this will be the location chosen during the VM import process.

Step 5.  Choose the Convert option and click the “Next” button.

Step 6.  Select the VHDX format type and click the “Next” button.

Step 7.  Choose the Dynamically expanding option if you need to conserve disk space.
Fixed Size will speed up performance by around 20%, but require 133 GB of disk space.

Step 8.  Select the location to save the converted disk, I chose the same directory the existing VHD was located.

Step 9.  To initiate the conversion click the “Finish” button.

Step 10. The conversion process will take around 30 minutes to an hour depending on the speed of your hard drive.

Step 11.  Once the conversion is complete the Wizard will automatically close, you should now have a VHDX file created

Note: In this example I chose the fixed disk mode for performance, so my new VHDX file is much larger than the old VHD

Step 12. To use the new VHDX file we must associate it to the Dynamics AX Demo VM, open the Hyper-V Manager and open the VM settings by right clicking on the virtual machine.

Step 13.  From the settings form click the “Browse” button and select the new VHDX file. Click Apply to make the change, the Hard Drive should now be listed as “AX2012-A.vhdx”.

Step 14.   Start the virtual machine up to confirm that the new VHDX is working correctly

Step 15.  After successfully starting up, you should now be able to enjoy the improvements afforded by the new VHDX format

Note: After confirming the conversion was successful you may now delete the old VHD file to reclaim your hard disk space.

Conclusion:

In this post we have walked through the steps required to convert the Dynamics AX 2012 Demo VM from the older VHD file format to the new VHDX file format supported in Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012.

 In this guide we will walk through the functionality available out of the box with Project Server 2010 integration utilizing the latest Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Feature Pack Demo Virtual Machine available on PartnerSource.   For more detailed information regarding the overall setup of the Project Server 2010 integration with Dynamics AX 2012, please see the following White Paper.

Part One of this guide will focus on setting up the general integration components.  Part Two will walkthrough using the integration to synchronize projects and resources between Dynamics AX 2012 and Project Server 2010.  

Getting Started:

 This guide assumes you have access to an instance of the Dynamics AX 2012 Feature Pack image.   The installation and configuration of the base demo image is beyond the scope of this guide.

 The Dynamics AX 2012 Feature pack image requires the installation of the following components to enable integration with Project Server 2010:

• Synchronization proxy for Microsoft Project Server
• Synchronization service for Microsoft Project server

To install these components we will need to download a copy of the Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Feature Pack media in ISO format.  The media may be downloaded from PartnerSource.
 

With the AX 2012 Feature Pack ISO mounted to DVD drive under the Dynamics AX 2012 FP Hyper-V server settings, we’re ready to get started.

Installation and Configuration:

 Step 1.  Log into the Dynamics AX 2012 FP environment as Contoso\Administrator

 Step 2.   Copy the contents of the D: drive to a new folder on the C: drive named “axinstall”
Note: If you attempt to perform the installation directly from the DVD the setup will halt with a dialog prompting for the disk to be inserted.

Step 3.  Launch the Dynamics AX 2012 Setup from “C:\axinstall\Dynamics AX\Setup.exe” and select Microsoft Dynamics AX components under Install

Step 4.  Proceed through the setup dialogs until you reach the Add or Modify components screen.  Select the Microsoft Project Server integration components.

Step 5. Click the Next button, you should pass the Prerequisite Validation and will then be required to enter the service account information

Step 6. After entering the service account information the next screen will allow you to connect to a message queue.  Select “Connect to an existing queue” and leave the default address value.

Step 7.  Click next accepting the default values for the AOS service account

Step 8.  On the Connect to Microsoft Project Server screen enter the following Project web access URL: https://project.contoso.com/PWA/

Step 9.  After clicking the Next button and completing the installation the following screen will confirm that the setup was successful

Step 10. Open Internet Explorer from the taskbar and launch the Project Web App from the Favorites pane

The URL for PWA on the FP image is: https://project.contoso.com/PWA/default.aspx

If PWA is functioning properly you should see the following page in Internet Explorer:

Step 11.  Open the Dynamics AX 2012 client and select the SUSB company which is the default company for the Services Industry

Step 12. Navigate to System Administration -> Setup -> Microsoft Project Server integration -> Integration settings

Step 13. Open the Integration settings form to view the current configuration.  The integration id grid is empty, so we will create a new integration configuration record.  

This is where we run into a data issue in the FP image because there is actually data linking the SUSB company to an integration ID in the supporting database tables.

Before creating the integration, we must first clear out the sync tables that have invalid data.   

Step 14. Open SQL Server Management Studio from Windows Start Menu-> All Programs -> Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 -> SQL Server Management Studio and connect to localhost.

Step 15.  From SQL Server Management Studio click on New Query and enter the following:

To run the script click on the Execute button in the toolbar:

You may now close SQL Server Management Studio without saving any files.

Step 16.  Close and re-open the Microsoft Project Server integration settings form in the Dynamics AX 2012 client.  The selected companies list box should now display the “This grid is empty.” message.

Step 17.  Click on the New button in the Microsoft Project Server integration settings form and enter the following:

               Integration ID: App1
               Microsoft Project Server URL: https://project.contoso.com/PWA/default.aspx
               Reporting database server: localhost
               Reporting database name: ProjectServer_Reporting

               Under the Companies fast tab select the SUSB company using the left arrow button.

Step 18.  With the settings entered into the Microsoft Project Server integration settings form, click on the Enable integration button

The Integration status should change to “In progress”, clicking the Refresh status button will update the form so that you may check for completion.

Step 19.  Once the integration has completed you should now see “Completed” in the status field. 
Note: If the status stays in progress for more than five minutes I recommend clicking “Disable integration”, deleting the integration record and recreating it.

Conclusion:

In Part One of this guide we have walked through the steps required to install the Project Server 2010 integration components on the Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Feature Pack release demo virtual machine image.  In Part Two of this guide we will walk through the process of enabling resources and projects for synchronization. We will also take a look at ways to troubleshoot the integration from the perspective of both Dynamics AX and Project Server.