Dynamics NAV Service Tier Management

I don’t think anyone would disagree that managing Service Tiers in NAV 2009 was painful. NAV 2013 changes that. A new MMC Snap-in has been created that simplifies the management of Service Tier.

 

From here we can connect to and manage Service Tiers on another server, but what’s better is that you can add a new Service Instance on that machine… no command prompts, no net-tcp port sharing. Just Add Instance and go.

In the background the system automatically creates a new settings file based on the information entered. Another great feature is that there is no need to copy the executable as the system uses the originally installed files, making updates easier.

Of note, NAV 2013 NAV Service Tier only comes in a 64Bit flavour which is why it shows up in the Program Files and not Program Files (x86) folder.

Management of settings is also controlled in the new snap in, no need to edit the settings file by hand. A fringe benefit to this is that you can get context based help on what the settings are and some potential values. This new interface is where the NAS is setup.

This is one of my favourite new features in the latest version of NAV. While it may seem trivial and minor to most, I’ve spent a considerable amount of hours managing and configuring Service Tiers for customers as well as internally on our Development and UAT boxes so this will help me out no end.