Integration architecture comparison
Because Dynamics AX 2012 is an on-premises solution, the integration technologies include several applications, including applications that integrate through a file-based approach, which would rely on either custom classes or the Data Import/Export Framework (DIXF).
Application Integration Framework (AIF) and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) are also commonly used in integration scenarios and are often used with middleware like Microsoft BizTalk Server, Microsoft Message Queuing (MSMQ), or custom technologies. Custom on-premises web apps can integrate with both AIF/WCF services and custom services.
Because the integration framework has changed, it’s likely that your integrations will need to be redesigned when you’re upgrading to finance and operations apps. During this time, make sure that you consider the following:
- Use this opportunity to modernize the integration stack.
- Use cloud integration platform.
- Simplify the overall architecture and try to reduce the number of integrations between applications, wherever possible.
- Factor effort and cost.
- Consider impact on integrating applications.
The following sections briefly review the finance and operations apps integration landscape. These topics will be discussed in more detail throughout this module.
A noteworthy change is that Application Integration Framework (AIF) is no longer used; therefore, many of the integration scenarios have changed. The core of many integration scenarios are Data entities, which support synchronous and asynchronous scenarios.
- For synchronous integrations, you will use OData to interact with on-premises, web apps, or .NET applications.
- For asynchronous integrations, you will use Data Management Framework (DMF) and middleware to communicate with applications from other sources.
Custom classes are still able to communicate with applications from other sources, and they are still applicable for connecting to web apps. Business events have been introduced so that you can use tools like Azure messaging services and Event grid. Additionally, you can use Dual-write to connect to data in Microsoft Dataverse in a bi-directional manner.