AX 2012 R2 CU6 Enterprise Portal deployment on SharePoint Enterprise 2013, episode x

I guess I was lucky when I managed to successfully install AX 2012 R2 CU6 EP on SharePoint 2013... After this, we concluded that the first issue was solved (rememeber the missing method in class SRSReportHelper?) and a co worker went to a customer to do the install. Guess what? It failed with a new error (I'll update this post with the details later)!

After a lengthy support process with Microsoft trying all sorts of clever tricks (tweaks), we recieved a couple of hotfixes (both application and binaries) that finally solved the issue. I don't exactly know if it was a combination of the tweaking and one/all hotfixes, but my co worker finally managed to successfully install EP in two separate installations. And right now it seems that we are experiencing yet another issue (a little bit early to conclude).

The reason for sharing this, is to warn about going to customers without testing the installation on the exact same software combinations as on the customer side and that you are prepared to discover new issues. This burns a lot of time (impossible to estimate the number of hours required) and it does not make a good impression at the customer side (trust me - they expect that we are experts, but that's almost impossible with the current maturity of EP on SharePoint 2013). I regret to say this, but Microsoft must put more effort into this combination and provide much more information on TechNet on how to successfully install EP on SharePoint 2013. The current information is outdated and references needed KB articles (hotfixes) that in fact are included in CU6, but NOT DOCUMENTED IN the release notes for CU6!

I'm tempted to recommend choosing SharePoint 2010 if possible until Microsoft makes installing EP on SharePoint 2013 to a more enjoyable ride and maybe also update the site template to SharePoint 2013 (is still 2010). Field testing the compability with SharePoint 2013 is NOT the way to do this since both partner and customers are suffering big time.

All issues we have discovered are related to site creation (EP deploys fine without site creation during installation, but as soons as you try to create the site either after deploying EP or as part of the installation, it fails).

I will update this post or post a follow up when I have the details.

Follow up (November 5th 2013):

It seems Microsoft was lucky this time - no hotfixes was required and my collegue managed to get EP installed on SharePoint 2013 together with Microsoft support. We used AX 2012 R2 CU6 with binary build 6.2.1000.3198 released in September. I don't have further details about the magic configuration change done, but it seemed to be related to a combination of an SharePoint Update changing something around the requirements for the Claims Service. I have to look into the support incident to get to the details and right now, I'm too busy to dig into this.

AX 2012 R2 CU6 Enterprise Portal deployment on SharePoint Enterprise 2013

This is a follow up on a previous post (AX 2012 R2 - Issue Deploying Enterprise Portal on SharePoint 2013).

It seems like KB 2851881 is the key to get the deployment to succeed and this fix is included in AX 2012 R2 CU6. The information in Enterprise Portal on Microsoft SharePoint 2013 [AX 2012]  seems to need an update after the release of CU6, since KB 2830441 (setup) and KB 2824690 (Claims Mode authentication) was not needed or actually included in CU6 (not described as part of the update). My guess is that KB 2830441 is included and that KB 2824690 is only needed in environments utilizing Claims based authentication.

After many hours of work, I was finally able to install and deploy Enterprise Portal on SharePoint Enterprise 2013 in a new environment based on AX 2012 R2 with CU6 slipstreamed (Windows Server 2012).

Short summary of the steps taken (bypassing details for all SQL Server services):

1. Install and configure AX 2012 R2 core solution with CU6 slipstreamed (complete initial check lists)
2. Optionally install and configure additional AX components (I included Reporting Extensions and Help Server in addition to the Client, Debugger and Management Utilities on each of the dedicted servers in my PoC environment consisting of many servers)
3. Install and configure SharePoint (see details below)
4. Install AX Client, Debugger (optionally) and Management Utilities (I met some new issues never seen before at this stage, but I solved this by manually installing the prerequisites)
5. Create new configurations and verify access to AX (a Best Practise of mine)
6. Install Enterprise Portal (I choosed to have the installer Configure and Create the Web Site) and wait until setup is finished (can take some time)

Details related to SharePoint

• Run the SharePoint 2013 Products Preparation Tool (separate program in SP 2013, account for several restarts of the server)
• Install SharePoint Enterprise 2013 (Complete, do not run the SP Products Configuration Wizard)
• Download KB 2767999 (March Update for SP Server that seems to be required or the minimum for AX 2012 R2 EP)
• Apply KB 2767999
• Download KB 2817414 (June Update for SP Server)
• Apply KB 2817414
• Run the SP Products Configuration Wizard (I used "Create a new server farm")
• Run the SP Configuration Wizard from Central Admin or manually configure the services you need (I used the Wizard approach and I didn't create the Site Collection at this step)
• Create the Site Collection (Team Site, SharePoint 2013 mode)
• Start the Claims to Windows Token Service (the AX Prerequisite Validation Utility gives a warning if this service is not running)

I should mention that I'm not an SharePoint expert...

Valuable sources

• Initial deployment administrative and service accounts in SharePoint 2013 (>)
• Install SharePoint 2013 on a single server with SQL Server (link) (>)
• Updates for SharePoint 2013 (>)

Proof (the message given in the light red area "Experience all that SharePoint 2013 has to offer. Start now or Remind me later" is expected, since the site template for EP is not yet updated to SharePoint 2013).

AX 2012 R2 - Issue Deploying Enterprise Portal on SharePoint 2013

I recently struggeled with an issue when deploying Enterprise Portal on SharePoint 2013 related to a missing method (removeFromCache) in class SRSReportHelper (the deployment logic is referencing a non existing method).

Likely solution:

• KB 2851881 - Error is thrown when trying to generate Power View Reports (update in \SYP\Classes\SrsReportHelper)

- Or -

• KB 2850972 - Cumulative Update 6 for AX 2012 R2 (KB 2851881 is included)

I have not yet verified the hotfix, but I will do that this week (hence "Likely solution").

Hopefully this will save valuable time trouble shooting this issue.

Update:

I'm working my way through a CU6 advanced update right now (Hyper-V on my laptop) and I can verify that the missing method finally is defined and without testing deploying the EP site yet, things looks more promising. From my point of view, this is a really bad example of quality assurance from Microsoft (end of discussion).

Here is what the class SRSReportHelper looks like after implementing CU6 that contains the fix: