Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Source to Target data upgrade

What is this feature ?

The source to target upgrade model provides a framework to reduce the downtime for AX upgrade.The upgrade downtime is achieved by enabling upgrade on both the source AX system (Ax 4.0 or AX 2009) and target AX system (Ax 2012). The upgrade consists of following steps.

1. Pre-upgrade processing on a live source AX system
2. Bulk data copy to target system,
3. Optimized data transformations (write once per table), and sync-on-the-fly to the target AX 2012
4. Fix duplicate RecID as a part of the upgrade process

How do we upgrade using this feature ?

The user installs an XPO on the source AX system being upgraded, launches the pre-upgrade checklist, and walks through the pre-upgrade checklist items. Most of the checklist tasks can be executed on a live AX system and rest within a single user mode. Concurrently the user can setup the AX 2012 environment for upgrade by installing AX 2012, choosing the upgrade option, and then launching the upgrade checklist and walking through the upgrade checklist. Once the user enters into the single-user mode on source system, the actual upgrade downtime starts. Most of the steps within single-user mode are highly parallelized and scalable.

New Prices for Microsoft Certifications Exams, for me 80$ :(

Effective July 1, 2011, the retail price of Microsoft Certifications will increase worldwide.* This change reflects the significant value that our certifications provide to our customers and our continual investment in new and enhanced Microsoft Certifications and other program improvements.

see more at  http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/certification/cert-pricing-FAQ.aspx

My comments:

I am not sure if it is a good decision or bad, but with this Microsoft should improve the quality of exam, they should also remove the Dumps culture to,  so the passing Exam is worthy and have the value of 80$ 

How to find those record that are modified on certain date from a certain table.

When i started working this, i thought it would be task like a click, because i was making logic in my mind to compare the CreatedDateTime field with today’s value (CreatedDateTime >= today()) but when i wrote this i got into trouble, as the compiler is not allowing me and give me error. The error suggest me that i need to convert the date to dateTime then i can use this in select to get my desired result. Not only i need to convert the date to dateTime but i also needs the gets min and max dateTime of todays date.

I open the most important GLOBAL class in AX and luckily i found methods there

datetobeginUtcDateTime(_currDate, _tz),
msdn description of the method: Retrieves a utcdatetime value that represents the beginning of the specified date.

_currDate :The date to retrieve the beginning of.
_tz : The time zone to use to find the start of the date
datetoendUtcDateTime(_currDate, _tz),
msdn description of the method: Retrieves a utcdatetime value that represents the end of the specified date.

_currDate :The date to retrieve the end of.
_tz : The time zone to use to find the end of the date
After finding the above method to get the min and max datetime for the todays date, i can use them in the select to get userLog record created today.

select * from log
where log.CreatedDateTime >= datetobeginUtcDateTime(today(), DateTimeUtil::getUserPreferredTimeZone()) &&
log.CreatedDateTime <= datetoendUtcDateTime(today(), DateTimeUtil::getUserPreferredTimeZone());

Move Dynamics AX database to different Domain/machine.

How to move database from Machine 1 to Machine 2, they both have different User and Domain ?

Steps are very simple:

1. Attached the database,
2. Add your AX login to the database you attached.
3. Open the “userinfo” table from sql server
4. Find the row with ‘Admin’ Id
5. Update the following columns
5.1 SID with your machine SID
5.2 NetworkDomain with your network domain,
5.3 NetworkAlias with your AX logged in user.
6. Now start the AX

First ways to get SID using registry path.
If you dont know how to get the SID, Here are the steps for this too.

The SID can be fetched from registry editor. for this open command prompt from Start manu, type “Regedit” and press enter key.

Please note in the above mentioned window (Registry Editor) in the path specified path : HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-1494175365-1026638594-2087099728-XXXX.. This first big key is your user’s SID

Second ways to get SID is using the Ntdsutil command line util,

Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2

Ntdsutil.exe is a command-line tool that provides management facilities for Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) and Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS). You can use the ntdsutil commands to perform database maintenance of AD DS, manage and control single master operations, and remove metadata left behind by domain controllers that were removed from the network without being properly uninstalled. This tool is intended for use by experienced administrators.

Ntdsutil.exe is built into Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2. It is available if you have the AD DS or the AD LDS server role installed. It is also available if you install the Active Directory Domain Services Tools that are part of the Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT).

1. Go to Run > cmd
2. Type ntdsutil and press Enter
3. ntdsutil prompt opens (ntdsutil: )
4. Type group membership evaluation and press Enter
5. Group membership evaluation prompt opens
6. Type run DOMAIN <User> and press Enter
7. A .tsv file will be created in C:\Documents and Settings\<User> OR <User>.DOMAIN
8. Open .tsv file and copy the first SID appear in the file OR the SID associated to your User Name