1. Overview of the Application Integration Framework
The AIF provides a programming model, tools, and
infrastructure support for services-based integration of application
functionality and data with Dynamics AX.
The published AIF interfaces to Dynamics AX are
compliant with industry standards and based on core Microsoft
technologies including the Windows software development kit (SDK) for
Windows Server 2008, Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5, Windows Communication
Foundation (WCF), Microsoft Message Queuing (MSMQ), and Microsoft
BizTalk Server.
In addition to the built-in programming model and
tools for implementing integration scenarios, Dynamics AX also has the
following functionality:
Provides a set of bindings to transport
technologies that can be used to exchange data with Dynamics AX, such as
MSMQ, BizTalk Server, and synchronous (WCF) Web services.
Supports the exchange of XML files through configurable file locations.
Through service references,
provides an abstraction and related tools for integrating Dynamics AX
with external applications (services) through X++ code (software),
allowing partners to reap the benefits of Software-plus-Services,
popularly known as S+S.
Overview Scenarios
Once your company has deployed Dynamics AX 2009,
you can benefit from automating your business processes. To realize the
full potential of Dynamics AX 2009 and maximum return on investment
(ROI) of your Dynamics AX 2009 deployment, however, you should consider
automating interactions between Dynamics AX 2009 and the other software
in your company and in the companies of your trading partners.
Many business scenarios require reading or manipulating information that is stored in Dynamics AX or in external applications. Figure 1
shows several of the scenarios in which people access information
managed in Dynamics AX to accomplish a business task. It also shows
sample scenarios in which Dynamics AX accesses information that external
applications manage. The large arrows show who accesses information.
Here are the sample scenarios with a few more details:
The company’s CEO analyzes sales data in Microsoft Office Excel.
A
salesperson who is visiting a prospect’s site uses a Microsoft Office
InfoPath form to create a new customer account and the first sales
order. The salesperson is required to run both background and credit
checks on the new customer before entering the data.
A
sales processor enters a sales order and uses customer records that are
stored in a CRM application to populate the customer section of the
order.
An operations worker needs to find
the most economical shipping rate for a certain shipment given the
delivery requirements specified by the customer.
A trading partner manages its sales orders and inquires about the status of its orders using its own custom application.
An order processor needs to send an invoice to a trading partner.
These tasks are often done manually—without
integrating Dynamics AX with other applications and business
processes—but manual processes don’t scale well. Manual processing can
also adversely affect the quality of the data managed in Dynamics AX,
such as when data is entered incorrectly. In the following section, we
show you how the AIF can help you automate these interactions and
further streamline your business processes.
2. Overview of Dynamics AX Services
If you look at Figure 1
again, you can see that the people on the left side of the figure use
applications that interact with the Dynamics AX data store. They send
requests (e.g., to read a sales order) into Dynamics AX and in most
cases expect a response from Dynamics AX (e.g., the requested sales
order instance). For these applications to be able to submit requests
into Dynamics AX, Dynamics AX must expose service interfaces that can
receive requests. These service interfaces are part of Dynamics AX
services, which can be created, managed, and published through the AIF.
Dynamics
AX services are a service-oriented abstraction used to encapsulate
Dynamics AX business logic—such as functionality to create a sales order
in Dynamics AX—in a reusable way. These services can be used to
participate in service-oriented architecture (SOA).
Dynamics AX services can be exposed to external
applications, called service clients, through a variety of interfaces,
such as MSMQ or WCF Web services. Publishing Dynamics AX services is a
simple task that a Dynamics AX administrator can do at run time. Once a Dynamics AX service has been published, client applications can consume it.
