Best Deployment Protocol from Dev to Client's UAT and From Client's UAT to Client's Production

Finance and Operations/AX Developer Forum
1

Hi,

I am using AX 2012 R2, I am looking for some help to get the Best Deployment Protocol for the below scenario. I have even mentioned other details as below:

I googled out and even went through the Deployment document provided by Microsoft. But I am still not clear on the Deployment Protocol for the changes that one would be doing from the Dev environment to the client’s UAT Environment and then finally to the client’s Production Environment. [i.e. 1. Our Dev Environment → 2. Client’s UAT environment → 3. Client’s Production environment.]

I was reading about various ways of deploying like using XPO, Models, Model stores. But our problem is that besides us one more company is providing the solution to the same client. So this might be little risky as we will not be aware of the changes that would be done by the other company.

My Question are:

  1. Should we do the customisations on the client’s UAT environment directly? Once verified by the QA, how should we move the customizations to the client’s production environment i.e. Using XPO or Models or Model Store ?

Note: Please provide the details too along with the method you would be suggesting as the Best Deployment Protocol so the changes done by the other solution provider are not affected by our deployment protocol.

  1. Should we do the customisations on out Dev environment [ Our system will NOT be same as the client’s UAT system].

Once verified by the QA, how should we move the customizations to the client’s UAT environment and then to Client’s Production Environment i.e. Using XPO or Models or Model Store ?

Note: Please provide the details too along with the method you would be suggesting as the Best Deployment Protocol so the changes done by the other solution provider are not affected by our deployment protocol.

I would appreciate for your sincere help ASAP.

Thanks & Regards,

Muneeb

2

I wouldn’t think about it at all - it’s exactly the case for deployments through model files.

.xpo are not intended for delivering to clients, because it has potential problems. And you can’t deliver the whole model store even if you wanted, because you would overwrite changes done by the other company.

Regarding your questions:

  1. Question: Should we do the customisations on the client’s UAT environment directly? Once verified by the QA, how should we move the customizations to the client’s production environment i.e. Using XPO or Models or Model Store ?
    Rephrasing: Should we turn the User Acceptance Test environment to the development environment and deliver directly to production without any testing environment at all?
  2. Answer: NO! You created UAT for some purpose, why do you want to throw it away? Do you really want to give your only test environment? Also, you said that one more company is delivering code there - do you really want to share a development environment with them? Does the client’s license cover development, do they have all necessary tools installed (Visual Studio, for instance), are you able to deal with licensing? And so on…
  3. Question: Should we do the customisations on out Dev environment?
    Answer: If you didn’t use it for development, it wouldn’t be Dev. :slight_smile:
    (See the previous answer for more serious points.)

In short, deliver a model file to the client, as the other company will do. When the application in UAT is fully tested and approve for deployment, copy the whole model store to the production environment.