Installation Considerations for Microsoft SQL Server

Article
09/30/2015

This topic describes the requirements for installing and configuring Microsoft SQL Server to work with Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016.

SQL Server Components to Install

For a list of supported editions of SQL Server, see Microsoft Dynamics NAV Database Components for SQL Server Requirements.

SQL Server Components

If you are installing SQL Server to use with Microsoft Dynamics NAV, then install the following components:

Database Engine Services
Client Tools Connectivity
Management Tools - Complete

Setup Options for Microsoft SQL Server

When you are running Microsoft SQL Server Setup, you must provide additional information. Your responses can affect how you use SQL Server with Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016.

Instance Configuration

If you plan on installing the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Demo database with Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016, and you want Microsoft Dynamics NAV Setup to use an already installed version of SQL Server (and not to install SQL Server 2012 Express) you must create a SQL Server instance named NAVDEMO in SQL Server before you install Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016. Otherwise, Microsoft Dynamics NAV Setup will install SQL Server 2012 Express automatically, even if there is a valid version of SQL Server already on the computer. If you do not plan to install the Demo database, or if you have no objection to using SQL Server 2012 Express, you are free to use the default instance and Instance ID on the Instance Configuration page, or to specify any instance name.

Server Configuration

We recommend that you use a dedicated domain user account that you create specifically for your Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server instances and for your Microsoft Dynamics NAV instance on SQL Server, instead of a Local System account or the Network Service account.

Data Encryption Between Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server and SQL Server

When SQL Server and Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server are running on different computers, you can make this data channel more secure by encrypting the connection with IPSec. (Other encryption options are not supported.) For information on how to do this, see Encrypting Connections to SQL Server, which is part of SQL Server 2008 Books Online in MSDN library.

Using Microsoft Azure SQL Database

You can deploy a Microsoft Dynamics NAV database to Azure SQL Database. Azure SQL Database is a cloud service that provides data storage as a part of the Azure Services Platform.

To optimize performance, we recommend that the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server instance that connects to the database is also deployed on a virtual machine in Azure. Additionally, the virtual machine and SQL Database must be in the same Azure region.

For development and maintenance work on Microsoft Dynamics NAV applications, if the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Development Environment is installed on the same virtual machine in Azure as the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server, then you can connect to the Azure SQL database from the development environment.

For more information, see How to: Deploy a Microsoft Dynamics NAV Database to Azure SQL Database.