Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Architecture

Multi tenancy is the key technology that makes Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central very flexible and scalable. Wrapped around multi tenancy, there are several of the latest Microsoft Azure-featured technologies that provide support for different logical software layers (tiers).

Since the Microsoft Corporation is committed to and focused on being the worldwide leader in cloud technologies, expect Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central to change and evolve quickly in its architecture design, as did its glorious predecessor Microsoft Dynamics NAV, in the coming decades. This continuous technological update of both platform and application could lead the product to fast and exponentially grow in the ERP SMB market, years after years. 

As cloud technologies are by definition always up to date, what is discussed in this chapter might be evolved by the time you are reading it. However, with high degrees of chances, the logical concept of software layer isolation will remain unchanged and a pillar to build cloud services. 

• Database Tier: Every single Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central customer tenant, production, or sandbox, is a single Microsoft Azure SQL database. Together with customer tenant databases, there are few application databases used to store application objects and system tables that are mounted on a Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Server service. This service is used to share and serve several different tenant databases with the same application code base. Tenant databases are periodically dismounted from an outdated service, in terms of platform and application, and mounted to the latest one, with a close to zero downtime for end users and a transparent continuous upgrade and product evolution. Azure SQL Databases are managed and scaled using elastic pool. More informations here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-elastic-pool

• Service Tier: Also known as the Application Service tier, it is a set of Azure VM(s) where Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Service and Web Server components are installed. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Service connects and handles process calls from customer tenant bounded to the same application base. Azure VMs are load balanced, to easily distribute horizontally the process execution load. Logically, the service tier is built-in as a Microsoft Azure Service Fabric Cluster where several Azure resources and features are combined for a fast, redundant, secure, and repeatable creation of application services. More information here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/service-fabric/service-fabric-overview. To give just a quick example of the feature used, the Azure Application Gateway is extensively adopted for endpoint monitoring and cluster load balancing. Each Microsoft Azure Fabric Cluster is equipped with all the resources and features needed to cope with scalability and high service availability. All technologies making of a cluster are always up to date. To give you another quick example, Azure VMs currently run the Microsoft Windows Server 2016, fully patched.

Both database and service tiers are constantly monitored to guarantee service health and availability. Collecting data and its further automated processing falls under the Telemetry term.

Telemetry is enabled at every level with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. If an application service or database tier reports any kind of warning or error, this is quickly sent to service operation teams that quickly react to it and guarantee a class-A uptime service level agreement (SLA) to all users.

Telemetry applies to the infrastructure artifacts and to the application logic. The Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central service emits logs that traces activities, and telemetry is capable of catching application-driven errors that are submitted to the relevant application team. The application team corrects application issues that will be included in the latest application tenant spin ups, together with feature enhancements. This will guarantee a solid, robust, and smooth product evolution.

Telemetry emits terabytes of data in a few weeks, and it is constantly under automated or on-demand analysis, and its outcome is used to improve and strengthen both the platform and the application efficiently.

Data generation and analysis is performed with the highest possible level of security guaranteed by the Microsoft Corporation. To provide an example, only certified and elected Microsoft service engineers can access infrastructure modules, and this is done only through specific, certified secure administration workstations (SAW). More informations here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt186538.aspx.

All in all, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central represents the best-in-class solution for ERP SaaS applications and the result of current and future profitable infrastructural investment made by the Microsoft Corporation in the SMB segment.