Bandwidth Utilization Improvements: Microsoft Dynamics® CRM 4.0

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 addresses the stringent requirements of the enterprise in the areas of performance and scalability, application flexibility, efficient manageability, and network configurability.

• Performance and scalability: Microsoft Dynamics CRM takes unique advantage of the Microsoft® Windows® operating system and Microsoft SQL Server® database platforms to provide enterprise levels of performance and scalability while keeping costs under control. Application tuning can be carried out using commonly-available skills and tools sets, and the application is designed for easy horizontal scaling through standard network load balancing methods.

• Application flexibility: Microsoft Dynamics CRM is engineered for change with point-and-click customization and a metadata-driven portable application model. The application is built on a highly flexible architecture based on industry standards such as Microsoft .NET, XML, and Web services.

• Efficient manageability: Microsoft Dynamics CRM helps improve application manageability through integration with enterprise systems management products such as Microsoft System Center Essentials. Multiple deployment models are available, including on-premise, hosted, and hybrid, and customers can change between deployment models seamlessly as their needs change.

• Network configurability: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 allows customers to provide a streamlined and high performance experience to users in global enterprise deployments. Microsoft Dynamics CRM components can be customized based on an organization’s business model and bandwidth requirements to provide efficient bandwidth utilization for their environment.

Testing Methodology The Microsoft team performed manual testing using 19 scenarios that represent a broad range of application functionality. The tests were run on the released versions of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0, and no customizations or optimizations were applied. The team used Fiddler, a network monitoring tool, to monitor network traffic and to capture traffic measurements for each page, measuring the amount of data that is sent and received. Test scenarios were selected based on areas of the application that are heavily used across industries. Because the enhancements were made at the architecture level, similar levels of performance improvement can be expected in all areas of the application.
TUNING AND OPTIMIZATION
Both versions of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM application were installed without customizations or optimizations. Customers commonly optimize the application to deliver only the data that their users need to streamline the user experience and reduce the amount of data that is transferred. In these instances, customers may experience even greater improvements in network bandwidth utilization.
Conclusion
In its continuing commitment to supporting global enterprises, Microsoft has made significant investments to improve network performance across the application. Global organizations must deliver CRM applications over network links of varying capability, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM made architectural changes to improve network performance across all areas of the application. Microsoft Dynamics CRM can be easily optimized to deliver only the data that each user group needs, reducing network traffic while providing a more streamlined experience for users. The performance improvements demonstrated by the testing show that Microsoft Dynamics CRM can scale to meet the needs of dynamic and geographically dispersed business environments.