[Mary Palmer]

Hi everyone,
We are planning an upgrade to GP 2016 and simultaneously moving to the cloud this year. Would like to hear from those that have done this — what cloud did you go with and how’s it working out? Also, are you accessing GP through Citrix or RDS?  Any advice or pitfalls to watch out for are welcome!

Thanks,
Mary

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Mary Palmer
Director of Reporting
Motion Picture Association of America, Inc.
Sherman Oaks CA
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[Rob Klaproth]

So far, Azure has been best for our clients, we have had great success.  The key is to make sure you hire a good cloud computing consultant that will help move your infrastructure properly, and size up your servers in the cloud correctly.   There are a lot of moving parts including your email server (Exchange), Active Directory domain controller, etc.  As you know, in the cloud there are many confusing terms like regions/zones, tiers of storage, tiers of server and other terminology that can make sizing out your new environment very difficult, so it’s good to go with a trusted partner who has experience in these sort of moves.   In my experience you can’t put a price on things like SSD storage for your SQL hosting your GP databases for example.

In terms of the client side, it’s best to deploy via RemoteApp.   RemoteApp gives you all the “local GP client” convenience, while  being hosted on an actual terminal server, to the user it almost appears local.   It’s really just a terminal server on steroids.   The nice part about RemoteApp is it will launch any “needed” apps, I.e. If they click the export to Excel button in Smartlist it will automatically launch Excel and make it look like the program is open locally on their computer even though it’s on the terminal server.  This allows MAC users to ALSO enjoy using GP!   The only down side, the user has to get used to the files saving on the terminal server, but with the right training and drive mapping, you can actually map back to their local drives so they can save on the computer – or better yet train them properly to save it somewhere so it’s getting backed up like F:AccountingJanuary 2017Recon worksheet.xls 🙂

Hope that helps.  

Armanino specializes in helping GP clients move where ever you want to, whether you’re going to the cloud, or coming back from the cloud, or switching cloud providers (we’ve done all 3 scenarios) and we have offices in LA, San Francisco, and San Diego. 🙂 

Rob Klaproth

Sr. Consultant II – Dynamics GP

rob.klaproth@amllp.com

 

Armanino^LLP

11512 El Camino Real Suite 311 | San Diego, CA 92130

858 794 9401 main |  858 207 5137 direct | 619 243 4939  mobile

LinkedIn | amllp.com

——Original Message——

Hi everyone,
We are planning an upgrade to GP 2016 and simultaneously moving to the cloud this year. Would like to hear from those that have done this — what cloud did you go with and how’s it working out? Also, are you accessing GP through Citrix or RDS?  Any advice or pitfalls to watch out for are welcome!

Thanks,
Mary

——————————
Mary Palmer
Director of Reporting
Motion Picture Association of America, Inc.
Sherman Oaks CA
——————————

[Jeff Hintz]

We are on Azure and using RemoteApp – it is a very solid platform and love it. However, RemoteApp will not be turned off by Microsoft later this year. It is also my understanding that you are no longer available to deploy it, so unless you already have it you can’t get it. We will need to either move to the Citrix Platform (Microsoft recommendation) or go back to a full RDP client. It should be noted that we used RDP with full success, but chose to migrate to RemoteApp for the scalability and disaster recovery functions.

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Jeff Hintz
MIS Manager
Progressive Components
Wauconda IL
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[Meena Niyogi]

Hello Rob,

    We are getting ready to deploy our Dynamics GP application on the Web Client. We are trying to decide where to place our system setup related windows, I:e Create Tables, Setup, Product Registration etc.  So we would like your opinion if we should expose these setup features on the Web Client or simply require the user to perform these processes on the desktop version.

Thanks
Meena
Integrated Software, Inc.

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Meena Niyogi
Computer Systems Analyst
Integrated Software, Inc.
Palm Bay FL
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[Rob Klaproth]

Hi Meena, interesting question.  As a GP consultant, I would never try to install or run setup routines for a new module from the web client.   Stuff like creating/upgrading tables should be done from the desktop client in my opinion.   What would be helpful is a message to the user saying “new install of (productname)  detected – please launch from the GP desktop client to complete installation” (or upgrade). 

However, if you are going to place these on the web client, I would say they should go in the administration area page if possible.  I would love if all ISV’s would standardize on putting all the admin functions of their software in the administration area page, but that’s not likely to happen. 🙂

——Original Message——

Hello Rob,

    We are getting ready to deploy our Dynamics GP application on the Web Client. We are trying to decide where to place our system setup related windows, I:e Create Tables, Setup, Product Registration etc.  So we would like your opinion if we should expose these setup features on the Web Client or simply require the user to perform these processes on the desktop version.

Thanks
Meena
Integrated Software, Inc.

——————————
Meena Niyogi
Computer Systems Analyst
Integrated Software, Inc.
Palm Bay FL
——————————

[Jeff Frye]

How does one kill off a RemoteApp GP session if it locks up?  I know no one like to think of this ever happening but it does and the loss of Task Manager to kill off these things is a real pain.

——————————
Jeff Frye
Systems Analyst
Hunt Brothers Pizza, LLC
Nashville TN
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[Beat Bucher]

Hi Jeff,
This is outside of the scope of the OP question.. but since you asked :-)..
You need to get yourself some ways of admninistrative Remote Desktop Access to the server entity where your GP client is hosted. With the help of the console management plugin for Remote Apps from Microsoft, you would then be able to check who’s session is currently active or disconnected, and send them a notification, or in your case, logoff the user’s serssion completly.. This would also kil the GP running apps. Of course, cleaning the ACTIVITY table is not part of that tool, you need to take care either yourself, or the user when they log back into GP.

——————————
Beat Bucher
Business Analyst, Dynamics GP MVP
Ultra-Electronics Forensic Technology Inc.
Montreal QC/Canada
+1-514-489-4267
@GP_Beat http://dyngpbeat.wordpress.com/
Montreal QC GPUG Chapter Leader
GP2013R2 / MR2012 CU14
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[Michael Barnes]

When you say, Azure has been best for your clients..
In what regard (ignoring cost and licensing considerations of course) ?
What pros and cons specific to GP have you found that you can share that would support Azure as that best choice ? 
I’m trying to provide some information for our Architecture Review Board on this and it has been difficult to highlight distinctions impacting GP.

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MB Barnes
IT Manager, Enterprise Systems
Kenco Group, Inc
Chattanooga TN
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[John Buchman]

Hi Mary,
We are using GP through AWS as a RemoteApp program.  My experience has been similar to Rob and Jason in that it has been smooth and enjoyable.

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John Buchman
Controller
RiverKids Pediatric Home Health
Pearland TX
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[Jeffrey DeMaria]

Hi Mary,

We operate a private cloud and help manage Azure environments. We specialize in helping customers get on the latest version of Dynamics GP in the Cloud.  Here is a link to our 3 step on boarding process.  We include UPGRADES with our service, deploy via Citrix for increased performance, and provide the HTML5 webclient.  We also have an azure offering. 

3 Steps to Cloud for Current Dynamics Customers – RoseASP, Inc.

RoseASP, Inc.		remove preview
3 Steps to Cloud for Current Dynamics Customers – RoseASP, Inc. With more 20 years of experience implementing, supporting and hosting Microsoft Dynamics ERP and CRM, RoseASP understands your needs as an existing Microsoft Dynamics customer. Whether you have one company or multiple companies, RoseASP will work closely with your Dynamics Partner to meet your cloud requirements. View this on RoseASP, Inc. >

You can check out our case studies as well about other customers moving GP to the cloud.

Please let me know if you have any questions!

Best,

——————————
Jeffrey DeMaria
Product Manager
RoseASP
San Diego CA
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[Michael Barnes]

Returning to the original question though.
Cost considerations with regard to enterprise licensing aside… Why go AWS vs Azure?
Are there some materials out there that help differentiate moving one path or the other ?
Pros and cons of one over the other ?

——————————
MB Barnes
IT Manager, Enterprise Systems
Kenco Group, Inc
Chattanooga TN
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