Self-service deployment

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Important

This content is archived and is not being updated. For the latest documentation, see Microsoft Dynamics 365 product documentation. For the latest release plans, see Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform release plans.

Note

These release notes describe functionality that may not have been released yet. To see when this functionality is planned to release, please review What’s new and planned for Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations. Delivery timelines and projected functionality may change or may not ship (see Microsoft policy).

The self-service deployment option for new implementation projects was released with limited availability in December 2018. We are now adding support for production environments. Production environments can now be deployed for all Lifecycle Services (LCS) projects that are configured for self-service deployments.

Currently only a small percentage of new projects are onboarded to the self-service deployment option. We will incrementally increase the percentage of new projects onboarded over time. There is no impact to any pre-existing projects and environments. We will work with the customers, not on self-service deployment, to bring the new experience to their environments.

All features applicable to Tier 2+ sandbox environments will be consistent with the production environments.

Production environments

  1. You will be able to deploy production environments as a self-service action. You will no longer need to raise a Microsoft service request.
  2. Deployments will be complete in less than 3 hours, or a third of the time taken to deploy using the current method.
  3. In order to apply updates, the combined deployable package will be applied to the Tier 2 sandbox environment. Once the package is applied and validated, it will be promoted to the production environment.

Tier 1 through Tier 5 sandbox environments

Configure Tier 1 build environment

You will need to configure a Tier 1 build environment to be able to apply updates to Tier 2+ and production environments. Using the Tier 1 build environment, you will need to create a single, deployable update package that combines ISV solutions and customizations. Whatever is supplied in the package is applied to the environment and it overwrites what is already present in the environment.

Remote desktop access

Today there is no remote desktop access to production environments. Going forward, you will not have remote desktop access to the Tier 2 to Tier 5 sandbox environments. However, you will continue to have access to the Azure SQL database associated with the Tier 2, Tier 3, Tier 4, and Tier 5 sandbox environments. The access will not be persistent; but rather, it will be granted as and when needed.

To access the Azure SQL database:

  1. From Lifecycle Services (LCS), add the IP address of the machine that you will use to connect to the Azure SQL database using SQL Server Management Studio.

  2. Use LCS to request access to see the database credentials. You must provide a reason for requesting access.

As soon as you submit the request, it's automatically approved. Within a minute or two, you will be able to see the database access credentials on the Environment Details page in LCS. You can use the credentials to connect to the SQL database.

Note

The credentials are valid for eight hours, and then they expire. After the credentials expire, you will have to request access again.

All other actions that require remote access into the machine, such as database movement across environments, seeing the health metrics such as CPU and memory consumption, getting access to the failure logs, and running regression tools, will be made available through LCS or in a way that does not require remote access into the machine.