AX7 Technical Changes Summary

With the AX 7, Microsoft Dynamics AX have been changed in such a manner that it can truly be classed as a brand new platform. On the function side, the changes are minimal (only the required changes to run the features on this  new platform).

In today's post, we'll look briefly at what is changed from technical perspective.

Client
The win 32 rich client is replaced with a browser (IE, Edge, Chrome, Safari).

AOS
Replaced with the ASP.Net web application running on an IIS.

Batch
If the AOS is gone, how my batches will run? Well a new windows service will perform this task.

MorphX
This is replaced with Visual Studio. Extensions have been added to VS to deal with model management, code compile and build. The compilation can either be done from VS or using a standalone tool xppc.

XPP
XPP stays as it is  (on the surface). Under the hood there is no p-code, no interpreter. The compile now results in CIL. The unit of compile is the object itself. What does this means? Before AX7 if a method of a class fails to compile, other methods were still usable. IN AX7 the whole class's compilation will fail. There are a lot of other enhancements to XPP. MFP's blog is the best place to find out what these are.

AOT
AOT is visible from VS in a read-only mode and is called "Application Explorer". It is available in "Classic view" and "Model View". The object location have changed for some of the objects  (EDT, classes etc.) and these are now grouped with similar objects.

Model Store
Model store is no more in the database. The AX application code is stored in the files on disk in XML format.

Model
The concept of model is same as previous versions i.e. a group of objects that typically can be distributed.

Package
New concept in AX7. A package can consist of one or more models and is a used for deployment/compilation of these models. Each package have its own folder. Inside the package folder model folders exist.

VS Solution
A VS solution is a collection of projects. The solution information is not saved in the packages/models.

VS Project
A VS project is a group of objects that are related. A VS solution can have more than one VS project. Similar to VS solution, the project information is not saved in the packages/models. A VS project can only belong to one Model. Projects can be exported as .axpp file and imported on other AX7 installations.

Debugging
There is no standalone debugging application. VS is used for debugging. To start debugging a start-up project and start-up object must be specified.

Build
A single project, model or a set of models can be build. The option to synchronise database is available as part of the build process.


This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties. Use code at your own risk.