Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Cookbook

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 can be installed on a single server as well as on multiple servers. While a single-server deployment is mainly recommended for development purposes or small-user-based production deployments, a multiserver deployment is more suitable for most production environments because multiserver environments provide a better balancing of processing load across several servers. Load-balanced multiserver deployment can increase the performance, availability, scalability, and throughput of the system. In addition, it also can increase the resilience of the system to server failures.

To begin with, we shall start with a recipe on the installation of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 on a single-server box with all its required components. Upon successful installation on a single box, we will find the recipe on the installation of a multiserver machine more useful.

One limitation of single-server deployments is that the server machine on which Dynamics CRM 2011 is installed cannot function as an Active Directory directory service domain controller unless the operating system of the server is Windows Small Business Server.

Like any other software, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 also comes with minimum recommended hardware and software specifications. Based on the Microsoft guidelines, the recommended hardware specifications for a Full Server deployment is as follows:

Hardware sizing greatly depends on nonfunctional requirements such as total user base, maximum number of concurrent users, required page load time, initial data volume, data growth, and data archival policy. Microsoft Dynamics Lab has released Performance Toolkit for Dynamics CRM 2011, which can be used to collect performance-related data that then can be used for sizing the related decisions in on-premises deployment. Performance Toolkit can be downloaded at http://pinpoint.microsoft.com/en-gb/applications/performance-toolkit-for-microsoft-dynamics-crm-2011-12884915630.

The Microsoft-recommended hardware specifications for the SQL Server-based Dynamics CRM database are as follows:

Microsoft-defined hardware requirements for Dynamics CRM Server 2011 can be found at:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh699840.aspx

The recommended operating systems for Dynamics CRM 2011 Server are Windows Server 2008 (Standard/Enterprise/Datacenter editions), Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Small Business Server (Premium/Standard), and Windows Small Business Server (Standard/Essential Update Rollup 13 of Dynamics CRM 2013 also supports Windows Server 2012.).

Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0 or 7.5, along with Indexing Service, IIS Admin service, and World Wide Web Publishing Service (W3SVC), need to be installed and running. Windows Data Access Components (Windows DAC) 6.0, and Microsoft ASP.NET 4 are also required for the installation of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Server.

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Server machine must be a domain member of a domain that is running in one of these Active Directory directory service domain modes: Windows 2000 (Mixed/Native), Windows Server 2003 (Interim/Native), and Windows Server 2008 (Interim/Native).

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 only supports the x64 version of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 with SP1 (Standard/Enterprise/Datacenter editions) / Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 (x64 version). Update Rollup 6 (and higher) also supports SQL Server 2012 (Enterprise/Business Intelligence/Standard versions).

Microsoft defined hardware requirements for SQL Server for Dynamics CRM Server 2011 can be found at:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh699808.aspx

Microsoft Dynamics CRM is designed so that its components (Application Service, Deployment Service , Sandbox Processing Service , and Asynchronous Processing Service) can run under separate identities. It is recommended that you use separate Active Directory accounts for running these components and SQL Server Reporting Services. Additionally, these accounts should be set up as service accounts in Active Directory and should only be granted the permissions necessary to enable a particular component to function. By this, we can help secure the system and reduce the likelihood of exploitation.

We will now take a look into these identity accounts and the privileges to be granted to them for proper functioning. It is very important to set up these accounts before starting the installation of Dynamics CRM 2011. After the installation of Dynamics CRM, these accounts should not be added to Dynamics CRM as users. This might create authentication issues and unexpected behavior in the application. These service accounts should be granted the following permissions:

In the previous sections we have discussed the minimum recommended software and hardware specifications and service account requirements. Now we will discuss how to install Dynamics CRM Server components on a single-server machine.

During the installation, if a machine restart is requested by the setup, it is recommended that one selects the Restart option before proceeding with the installation.

It is usually recommended that one creates separate organization units (OUs) for each CRM deployment, especially for production or production-like deployment environments. Dynamics CRM 2011 Server installer creates security groups within the specified OU, and hence, it is advisable to create separate OUs for deployment isolation purposes.

Follow these steps to install Dynamics CRM 2011 Server in a single-server machine:

In this recipe we have installed Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 on a single-server machine. During the process, the installer creates four security groups in Active Directory; these groups are fundamental for Dynamics CRM's functioning. Usually it is left to the installer to create these groups, but these groups can be precreated manually and can be used during the Dynamics CRM installation. If these groups do not already exist in Active Directory, the installation user must have Active Directory rights to create them. The following are the groups that will get created during installation:

One more important point to be noted here is that the four service accounts used during installation and the SQL access accounts are part of some or all of the aforementioned Active Directory groups. The following matrix will explain the group membership of these accounts:

For Dynamics CRM to function properly, these service accounts will have to have the following rights:

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 uses a list of ports, and these ports have to be allowed in the firewall for CRM to function. The following matrix lists all these ports:

Each of these service accounts runs a specific component within the Dynamics CRM 2011 Server infrastructure. The following outlines how these service accounts are used within Dynamics CRM 2011:

Once the installation has completed, its success can be verified by accessing the CRM server URL. The URL would be in the format http://<servername>:<port _number>/<organization_name>/main.aspx.

Here, we will replace <servername> with the name of the Dynamics CRM 2011 server, <port_number> with the port used by Dynamics CRM 2011 Server, and <organization_name> with the CRM Organization that was created during installation.

If installation is successful, the Dynamics CRM landing page will appear in the browser window as shown in the following screenshot:

Before we end this recipe, let's take look at some information on the use of currency codes in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011:

Dynamics CRM 2011 is a multicurrency system that allows a user to perform any financial transaction using their own currency, known as transaction currency . During installation, a primary or default currency has to be selected. This currency is the de facto currency for financial transactions within a CRM Organization and known as the base currency . After defining a base currency for the organization, we have to define exchange rates to associate the base currency with transaction currencies.

Each currency record has three parts describing the currency:

Any transaction in other currencies will automatically be converted to the base currency, using the exchange rate defined in the record for that currency, in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM database.

The base currency of a CRM Organization has to be selected carefully as:

The supported currency code details can be found at:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh699729.aspx

We have seen that, in the process of a single-server installation, all the server roles of Dynamics CRM 2011 are installed onto one single machine. But in a multiserver deployment, the server roles are usually separately deployed on multiple machines. We will find out more about multiserver Dynamics CRM deployments in the latter parts of this chapter.

Before we start installing Microsoft Dynamics CRM Reporting Extensions, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server setup must be complete.

Dynamics CRM Reporting Extensions can only be installed for one instance of SQL Server Reporting Services on a computer. In addition, different deployments of Dynamics CRM 2011 cannot share a single SQL Server Reporting Services server; however, a multitenant CRM deployment can use the same instance of Reporting Services.

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Reporting Extensions setup must be run on a computer that has Microsoft SQL Server 2012/2008 Reporting Services installed. The user account to be used in order to install Reporting Extensions:

The Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) should be running under a separate Active Directory service account. This account should be added to two of the Dynamics CRM-specific Active Directory groups, namely, PrivUserGroup and PrivReportingUserGroup. However, this account should not be part of SQLAccessGroup. This account should not be set up as Local Service as well.

Reporting Extensions should be installed on that Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services instance which is being used by the CRM Organization. Otherwise, reports will not function. In addition to that, the base language of CRM Organization and that of CRM Reporting Extensions has to be the same.

Please follow these steps to install Microsoft Dynamics CRM Reporting Extensions:

This recipe installs the Fetch and SQL data processing extensions on the Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services server. It is recommended that the SSRS instance be run on a server separate from the one which has hosted the Dynamics CRM databases.

SQL Server Reporting Services should be running on a service account that is not part of SQLAccessGroup; in case it does, the Reporting Extensions installer throws an error message, A Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server component is using the same account as the instance of SQL Server Reporting Services. Usually, it happens when the account is used to run the Dynamics CRM 2011 Server components is also used to run the SQL Server Reporting Services. It is recommended that you use a separate account to run the SQL Server Reporting Services to reduce security vulnerability.

With Dynamics CRM Reporting Extensions installed, all the default CRM reports will start working and custom SQL bad Fetch-based reports can now be created, uploaded, and scheduled.

Post the reporting extensions installation, log in to the Dynamics CRM 2011 and run any of the out-of-the-box reports. This can be done by navigating to Workplace | Reports. If Reporting Extensions has been successfully installed, the out-of-the-box reports will function successfully.

The preceding screenshot of the Account Overview report has been generated by using the sample data.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook can be installed with either the online or offline capability. Offline access enables a user to access Dynamics CRM data even when he or she is not connected to Dynamics CRM Server.

The Microsoft-recommended software and hardware requirements for the machine where Dynamics CRM for Outlook has to be installed are as follows:

Additionally, Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook using the offline capability increases the need for a higher specification of hardware, which can include processor, memory, hard disk, and network throughput. For a successful network installation, a minimum network bandwidth of 300 kbps or higher is required.

Microsoft-recommended hardware and network specifications for Dynamics CRM 2011 for Outlook can be found at:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh699680.aspx

To install Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook, any of the following operating environments is required:

The other software prerequisites are as follows:

To install and run the 64-bit version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook, a 64-bit version of Office 2010 is required.

Microsoft-recommended software specifications for Dynamics CRM 2011 for Outlook can be found at:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh699818.aspx

In order to set up Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook for a user, there are three major activities that need to be completed:

During the installation, if a machine restart is requested by the setup, it is recommended that you select the Restart option before proceeding further with installation.

Once Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook is installed on a user's computer, Dynamics CRM-related toolbar or ribbon changes will be reflected in the Outlook application. Dynamics CRM 2011 can be accessed by using the Microsoft Outlook shortcut bars, ribbon, and folder navigation. Installing Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook also creates a toolbar in Microsoft Outlook and a folder in the structure of the user's mailbox.

In the following screenshot, we can see how Microsoft Dynamics CRM has been accessed in the Microsoft Outlook 2003 client:

The user account that will be used to run the language pack should have local administrative rights on the machine. The language pack for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 enables users to change the CRM user interface language or Help Text . It is important to note that the language pack must be installed on both Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Server as well as client machines that are using Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook. The supported languages are as follows:

The language pack deployment has the following two steps:

The following steps are required to be followed to install the Dynamics CRM language pack:

To provision the language pack in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM deployment, perform the following steps:

The language pack installs a translation package of the labels, text, and help content of the Dynamics CRM user interface. While the base language defines the default Dynamics CRM UI language, the language packs further installed can provide flexibility to users to select another language of their choice. This is often a very important feature of Dynamics CRM when there is a use case of deploying Dynamics CRM for a multilingual user base.

In Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook, the user language settings only apply to Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook features, such as the user interface display of the CRM menu; they do not affect other areas of Microsoft Office Outlook.

The minimum recommended hardware specifications for the server machine where E-mail Router will be installed are as follows:

E-mail Router components can be installed on a machine that runs on Windows 7 (32- or 64-bit editions), and on Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2 (x64-bit editions only).

Finally, Rule Deployment Wizard requires the Microsoft Exchange Server Messaging API (MAPI) client libraries.

The minimum permissions required to run E-mail Router are:

Follow these steps to set up E-mail Router component:

The setup for E-mail Router for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 contains two main components:

Rule Deployment Wizard lets us deploy rules that are used to route e-mail messages to a forward mailbox from the mailbox of a user or queue. Rule Deployment Wizard does not work with POP3/SMTP e-mail servers.

Users and queues in CRM can be configured to use E-mail Router for processing of the incoming and outgoing CRM e-mails. To utilize this functionality, users and queues must have a valid e-mail address and must select E-mail Router for the incoming and outgoing E-mail access types. This can be set up by an administrator or by users having the relevant permissions.

E-mail Router can also be installed on a multiserver cluster to provide high availability and failover functionality. We will discuss this in the Installing Microsoft Dynamics CRM E-mail Router on multiple computers recipe later in this chapter.

After E-mail Router is installed, the E-mail Router configuration manager, an application that is installed during the Microsoft Dynamics CRM E-mail Router setup, must be run. We will discuss this in the next recipe.

We will take a look at all the previously mentioned tasks one by one:

Task 1 – Setting up profiles

Please follow the ensuing steps to configure the E-mail Router settings:

Task 3 – Setting up the forward mailbox

Task 2 – Configuring user e-mail settings

By default, incoming and outgoing e-mail access types in Dynamics CRM are set to Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook. Unless this is changed, Outlook will be unable to send and receive e-mails.

To configure E-mail Router for incoming and outgoing e-mail access types, perform the following steps:

Task 4 – Configuring rules using Rule Deployment Wizard

To deploy these Microsoft Dynamics CRM user inbox rules, the Rule Deployment Wizard can be used. Rule Deployment Wizard can be run at any time to add or change the inbox rules for Microsoft Dynamics CRM users.

To run Rule Deployment Wizard, the user must:

The following are the steps to run the Rule Deployment Wizard:

E-mail Router Configuration Manager configures the deployment and enables Dynamics CRM users and queues to send and receive e-mail messages. The E-mail Router configuration steps remain the same irrespective of whether E-mail Router is installed on a single machine or multiple-machine clusters. With this recipe, the E-mail Router installation activities come to a close.

Please perform the following steps to install E-mail Router to the active node in the cluster:

Next, we will install E-mail Router on each of the passive nodes of the cluster using the following steps:

Finally, we will create a generic resource service for the cluster by following these steps:

We achieve high availability for the Microsoft Dynamics CRM E-mail Router service by deploying it on multiple computers by using Windows Server's clustering technology. The server cluster has to be configured in an active/passive manner. In case of an active node failover scenario, the passive node becomes the primary node and the common storage or shared disk resources will move from active node 1 to the passive node.

In a multiple-server deployment, there are usually two or more server computers running the Dynamics CRM 2011 Full Server installation. But for improved performance, the server roles (Front End Server role, Back End Server role, Deployment Administration Server) can further be deployed across different server machines. When Dynamics CRM 2011 is deployed across multiple servers, Network Load Balancing (NLB) must be configured to provide load balancing.

In case of deploying various server roles into separate servers, Microsoft's recommendation is to not install the Help Server role on the same server where Front End Server roles are installed. This is to minimize the CRM system's exposure to denial-of-service attacks.

Let us take an example of two server nodes (CRM001 and CRM002), where Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Full Server is configured (or will be installed) as a server cluster (CRMCluster) and the CRM installation uses a SQL Cluster environment (SQLCluster).

The following network diagram describes our multiserver deployment scenario:

We have to perform the following steps to make this setup work:

To achieve multi-server deployment in our scenario, we have to complete the following subtasks.

First, we have to install Dynamics CRM 2011 on two server nodes; we will achieve this one at a time. Here, we are assuming that the installation of a Full Server role will be performed for both these server machines. As stated in the earlier sections, installing Microsoft Dynamics CRM Workgroup Server 2011 on multiple servers is not supported.

To install Dynamics CRM 2011 on these two machines, perform the following steps on each of the machines independently:

The next steps are to create a server cluster for servers CRM001 and CRM002 and to enable loading balancing between them. The recommended settings while creating the NLB are as follows:

The next step is to configure the SPN for the CRM Application Pool service account.

In this deployment, we are using a domain user account (CRMServiceAccount) to run the Dynamics CRM 2011 Application Pool. When IIS 7.0 (or higher) is used on a cluster environment, we need to set up SPN for the Application Pool account. Active Directory uses the SPN for mutual authentication of a service instance, which enables the service instance to correctly authenticate a user who attempts to access resources that are located on other domain-member computers.

Perform the following steps to configure the SPN for the CRM Application Pool Account:

Now it is time to configure the NLB for this deployment. NLB will be configured using Dynamics CRM 2011 Deployment Manager. Perform the following steps to configure the NLB:

Multiserver deployment gives performance benefits and scaling advantages. However, with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Workgroup Server 2011, the Dynamics CRM 2011 server roles cannot be installed on separate computers. Load balanced multiserver deployment, as stated in the recipe, is essentially the most likely deployment paradigm in a production environment.

It is common practice to deploy Dynamics CRM 2011 with a SQL Server clustered environment. To achieve this, create a SQL Server cluster, and then during Dynamics CRM 2011 installation, on the Select SQL Server page, type the virtual server name that was specified when we created the SQL Server cluster.

The multiserver deployment of Dynamics CRM 2011 can be more complex than what has been discussed in this recipe. One example of a complex deployment can be to deploy all server roles to separate server machines.

The following diagram describes a multiserver CRM 2011 deployment with different server roles deployed on separate server machines.

When we select a server role other than Full Server, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server setup does not create an organization database during the installation. If the deployment does not have an organization database, we must use the deployment manager to create a new organization. The next recipe will guide us with creating a new organization in Dynamics CRM 2011.

The steps to create a new organization are as follows:

Using this recipe, organizations within Dynamics CRM 2011 can be set up. Multiple organizations can be set up by repeating this recipe. An organization within Dynamics CRM 2011 is usually provided a meaningful name from the business standpoint. The organization name appears as part of the Dynamics CRM URL. However, there are some restricted names that cannot be used as organization names within Dynamics CRM.

Please perform the following steps to edit an organization's details:

Once the changes are applied, the organization is updated with the new changes. Unless setup encounters any error, the changes will be published and the changes will be visible in the organization list.

Recipes in this chapter demonstrated how to install various components of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011. In the next chapter we would discuss the following recipes: