Operations Guide

Non Production Environments

Prepared for
[Customer Name]

Project
[Project Name]

Prepared by
Eduardo

Contributors
[Document contributors]
Revision and Signoff Sheet

Change Record
Date Author Version Change reference

Client Review
Name Version approved Position Date
 Table of Contents
1 TEMPLATE GUIDANCE........................................................................................................................4
2 OVERVIEW.........................................................................................................................................5
3 BUSINESS SOLUTION OVERVIEW........................................................................................................6
4 MICROSOFT AX SOLUTION.................................................................................................................7
OVERVIEW....................................................................................................................................................... 7
INTEGRATION................................................................................................................................................... 7
5 ENVIRONMENTS TO SUPPORT...........................................................................................................8
6 SUPPORT ESCALATION CONTACTS.....................................................................................................9
7 SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENTS...........................................................................................................10
8 INCIDENT MANAGEMENT................................................................................................................11
9 MONITORING AND ALERTING..........................................................................................................12
10 REGULAR OPERATIONAL TASKS.......................................................................................................13
BACKUP/RESTORE PROCESS.............................................................................................................................. 13
SCHEDULED BATCH PROCESS MONITORING......................................................................................................... 13
DAILY/WEEKLY/MONTHLY CHECKLISTS............................................................................................................... 13
11 TROUBLESHOOTING FAQ.................................................................................................................14
12 USEFUL REFERENCE DOCUMENTATION............................................................................................15
13 TRAINING RESOURCES.....................................................................................................................16
14 OTHER INFORMATION.....................................................................................................................17
 1 Template Guidance

[Description: This document is the primary vehicle to handover the non production environments to the
customer’s support teams and to ensure their readiness to accept them. The recommended approach for
this is to run a series of workshops to go through the solution and typical support and operational tasks
that are required. The operation guide for the non production environments should assist the support
teams in the day to day running and management of the solution. It does not need to be as
comprehensive as the Production Operations Guide which is delivered in the deployment phase.
Justification: Handing over the non-production environments at an early stage (during the development
phase) to the operational support teams helps prepare the operations teams for the Production
deployment. Additionally it allows the consultant to step back from the environment support tasks and
focus on the delivery of the production solution.]

Owner & Roles

Owner Technology Consultant

Consulting Role/s Technical Consultant

Customer Role/s IT Team Member

 2 Overview

A number of Microsoft Dynamics AX environments have been delivered at: [Customer Name] by the project
team during the Analysis, Design and development phases of the project. This document provides specific
operational guidance for maintaining these environments on an ongoing basis and generic background
information on the Microsoft Dynamics AX solution.

Handing over the environments to an onsite team for day to day administration and support provides a
useful readiness activity prior to the production handover in the deployment phase as well as enabling the
project team to focus of the delivery of the production solution.
 3 Business Solution Overview

[Provide a description of the use of the system – Who the users are? Where the users are based? What
the business impact of an outage is? Core functionality provided by the solution]
 4 Microsoft AX Solution

[This section should include an overview of the Microsoft Dynamics AX application as background
information for a support organization including how the solution has been extended and customized
beyond the core product]

Overview
An overview of the standard Microsoft Dynamics AX solution is shown below:

<<Insert AX Architecure Diagram>>

Integration
The AX solution has the following integration points:

 [Provide an overview of all inbound and outbound integration points.]

 5 Environments to Support

[Define the list of environments deployed at the customer site and cross reference any environment
specification or installation documentation. Where there are no environment specifications or installation
guides to reference you should provide further details of the environments here.]

The following environments have been delivered to [Customer Name] and will need to be supported:

Environment Location Environment Documentation

Name
<Environment <<Environment <<Links to documents in document repository or embedded
Name> Location>> documents such as the environment specification and installation
documents>>

A full list of all the hardware and software components across all environments is itemized below:

Environment Server Location Operating System Applications

Name Name
<Environment <<Server <<Location – <OS> <Applications>
Name> Name >> Site, Area,
Rack and
Slot>>
 6 Support Escalation Contacts

[Define the business owner and support escalation processes]

Area Contact
Solution Owner (this should be a business rather than a <Contact Details>
technical solution owner)
Application Functionality Issues <Contact Details>
Product Defects <Contact Details>
Database Issues <Contact Details>
Hardware / Platform Issues <Contact Details>
Network Support <Contact Details>
ISV Solution Support <Contact Details>
 7 Service Level Agreements

[Define any Service Level Agreements that need to be maintained for each of the environments]
 8 Incident Management

[Define any Incident Management processes that should be followed in the event of a Loss of Service]
 9 Monitoring and Alerting

The following servers should be monitored:

Server name Component Details

<Database Server(s)>
<AX AOS Server(s)
<AX Batch Serve(s)>
<Enterprise Portal Server(s) >
<Local Active Directory
Controller>
<Migration Server(s)>
Server Availability
Server Availability, AOS
Performance Monitor Counters
Server Availability
Server Availability, IIS
Server Availability
Server Availability
Add server to standard
monitoring
Add server to standard
monitoring,.
Add server to standard
monitoring
Add server to standard
monitoring. Monitor IIS EP Ports
Add server to standard
monitoring
Add server to standard
monitoring

Use task manager to monitor AX specific errors/warnings on the AOS, Batch Servers and Clients.

[Define any Specific components that should be monitored]

 10 Regular Operational Tasks

[This section should document a list of regular operations tasks required against each environment]

Backup/Restore Process
[Specify details of the backups that are required against each environment, any useful point in time
backups that have been taken (e.g. clean environment) what files, databases etc are backed up and how to
restore them etc.]

Scheduled Batch Process Monitoring

[Specify details of any scheduled batch activities that should be monitored]

Daily/Weekly/Monthly Checklists
[Specify details of any scheduled regular checks that should be carried out against the environment.
Where possible these should be automated via system monitoring and alerting tools such as Microsoft
System Center]

Weekly

Server name Check Completed

<AX AOS Server(s)>
<AX AOS Server(s)>
<AX AOS Server(s)>
<AX Batch Server(s)>
<AX Batch Server(s)>
<AX Batch Server(s)>
<AX Client>
<SQL Server(s)>
<SQL Server(s)>
<SQL Server(s)>
Review Event Logs for errors/warnings
Review Resource Utilization
Check disk spaced on all drives
Review Event Logs for errors/warnings
Review Resource Utilization
Check disk spaced on all drives
Review AX logs for error/warnings
Review Event Logs for Errors
Review Resource Utilization
Check disk space on all drives

Monthly

Server name Check Completed

<AX AOS Server(s)>
<AX AOS Server(s)>
<AX Batch Server(s)>
<AX Batch Server(s)>
<SQL Server(s)>
<SQL Server(s)>
<SQL Server(s)>
Review Event Logs for errors/warnings
Review Resource Utilization
Review Event Logs for errors/warnings
Review Resource Utilization
Review Event Logs for Errors
Review Resource Utilization
Check for index fragmentation
 11 Troubleshooting FAQ

[Provide a list of FAQ’s and answers on support issues that regularly occur]
 12 Useful Reference Documentation

[Provide links to other useful reference documentation, either in the public domain or project specific]
 13 Training Resources

[Provide links and information on suitable product training]

 14 Other Information

[Provide any other relevant information not included in the rest of the document]