We have previously blogged about the latest release of Dynamics AX (7) with the improved integration with Lifecycle Services (LCS), but what is LCS?
Lifecycle Services (LCS) is a Microsoft Azure-based collaboration portal that provides a unifying, collaborative environment along with a set of regularly updated services that help you manage the application lifecycle of your Microsoft Dynamics AX implementation.
By providing a collaborative workspace that can be used by both customers and partners, separately and together, LCS enables closer collaboration, helps speed implementations and reduces time to value. Analyst Joshua Greenbaum, who founded Enterprise Applications Consulting (EAC) more than 17 years ago, interviewed early Dynamics ‘AX 7’ customers and partners and reviewed the feature sets of Dynamics ‘AX 7’, LCS, and Microsoft Azure. “It’s clear that Microsoft has made some very crucial and highly strategic bets, when it comes to the combination of Dynamics AX 7, LCS, and Azure,” states Greenbaum. “…EAC believes that these bets have been extremely well-placed, and the uniqueness of the combination of these three offerings bodes well for Microsoft, its partners, and most important of all, its customers.”
We have previously discussed the concerning statistics of project failures from the Project Management Institute, LCS can help improve the chances of project management success. The goal of LCS is to deliver the right information, at the right time, to the right people and to help ensure repeatable, predictable success with each roll out of an implementation, update or upgrade.
Transform your business faster in an agile environment
The business landscape requires companies to change and adapt must faster than ever before, with this in mind Microsoft have developed Lifecycle Services (LCS) to allow companies to implement and update their business management system quicker than possible previously.
Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services can give businesses the agility to quickly adapt to changing business needs. Organisations can use LCS for pre-built, pre-configured industry solutions, to speed up deploying a new ERP project while reducing risk and achieving return on investment faster.
The Azure-based service signifies a notable shift in application lifecycle management (ALM) services. The key benefit of LCS is its capability to manage the complete lifecycle of a Dynamics AX (and in certain deployments of Dynamics CRM and soon NAV) implementation; from pilot, to go-live, and post implementation provision, tracking the implementation as it advances.
The service lifecycle – helping organisations to stay up-to-date
LCS manages the entire application lifecycle, from discovering solutions and easing the selection process, to designing higher quality systems and improving the operating time of the system and ultimately customer satisfaction.
Through the “define, develop and operate” stages of LCS, key users such as Project Managers, Business Analysts and IT Administrators access the portal in the relevant way that meets the needs of their role and the stage of the project.
Modelling in Azure for collaborative testing and control during development and deployment
The capability of Dynamics AX 7 to run in Azure, and support hybrid deployment, means test implementation can be run in Azure even if the final deployment is destined for on-premise, without physical resources and with marginal human input.
This is especially valuable for performing user acceptance testing at earlier stages in the implementation process rather than on-premise and in the cloud.
This will result in lower costs, higher user buy-in and deliver software that precisely fulfils the user’s needs.
The significance of these capabilities in streamlining the design, implementation and on-going support of Dynamics AX cannot be over-emphasised. The issue of how to efficiently manage the full lifecycle of an enterprise software suite has bedevilled vendors, service providers and customers since the dawn of the enterprise software market.
By putting the full process in the cloud, where every change is monitored, and by basing the implementation lifecycle on a fully-functional modelling system, also running in the cloud, Microsoft has removed an enormous amount of complexity – and time and expense – from what has previously been a process fraught with problems for customers, partners and vendors.
This ability to combine the best in cloud-based system management with ALM represents a change in the way solutions are selected, projects are managed and how applications develop and evolve, contact Prodware to find out more.
Leave a reply