Dedicated Environment

Environment: Partner Hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM is available in two environments: a shared environment and a dedicated environment. The shared environment is more common, but the dedicated environment is a better fit in certain scenarios. This page describes the dedicated environment.

What does dedicated mean? A dedicated environment means that the hardware resources used to provide hosted services to your organization are used by your organization only. In a dedicated environment, you also have administration privileges over the server and can control how you use it. You can install ISV solutions or make your own code modifications; you could even store your website there. A dedicated environment generally costs more because the costs of maintaining the dedicated hardware resources cannot be spread over multiple customers as they could in a shared environment. Here are a few good examples of when a dedicated environment would be useful or necessary:

• Unmanaged Code – code not developed/managed by xRM or Microsoft
  • Custom Workflow Assemblies
  • Plug-in
  • Custom Web Applications
  • Custom SQL Reports
  • ISV Tools
  • Other Integrations
• You would like to use your own Microsoft licenses (Windows, SQL, CRM, etc.)
• High Security - your company requires physical isolation
• Single Sign On

Differentiators: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online is absolutely a great offer, which is why we are the largest reseller of CRM Online in the country. However, occasionally, there are some customer requests and requirements that CRM Online is not able to satisfy. Our value-added approach to our CRM practice is to always find the right environment and right fit for our customers. Because of this, in addition to reselling CRM Online, we have our own dedicated environment of hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Here are the most important features supported in our dedicated environment that CRM Online presently does not support:

• Single Sign On and Active Directory (AD) authentication
• Single Sign On for custom web applications without the need for Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS)
• Restrict which IP numbers can access the system or database
• Hosted E-mail Router
• Direct access to SQL for high volume usage such as data migration
• Read access to the SQL Server for Reporting, Business Intelligence, and Enterprise infrastructures
• Trusted connections (IPSec VPN, local loops) for line-of-business application integration across the firewall
• Hosting of line-of-business applications
• White Label (for resellers that want to apply their own skin and invoice their customers)
• Custom workflow activities (assemblies)
• XAML workflows
• Routine code debugging
• Backups

Configurations: A dedicated environment is further broken down into two possible configurations: physical and virtualized. In a physical configuration, you have control over the complete physical server hardware machine or machines used to provide hosted services to you. In a virtualized configuration, you have control over a fixed portion of the server hardware. A virtualized configuration reserves fewer resources and therefore costs less. A virtual configuration is good for companies that don't need all the capacity of a server, but do require a dedicated environment. When we leverage virtualization, we use Microsoft Hyper-V (Windows 2008 R2).

One-time setup fee: There is a one-time setup fee associated with any dedicated environment. The one-time setup fee includes, but is not limited to, provisioning a new virtual machine (virtualized configuration) or physical machine (physical configuration), VLAN and network configuration, firewall access rules, backup software licenses and configuration, additional Microsoft licenses, and installing and configuring Microsoft Dynamics CRM and its pre-requisites, etc.

The one-time setup fee differs depending on the configuration type. For a virtualized configuration, the one-time setup fee is $3,500. For a dedicated configuration, the one-time setup fee is $7,000. A good rule of thumb for when you will outgrow a virtualized instance is at approximately 15 users. This is not an exact number because the types and frequencies of activities you may perform can vary widely. Regardless, if you have more than 15 users, we strongly suggest a physical environment. We also support an upgrade path starting with a virtualized configuration, then upgrading to a physical configuration when need be. If you select this path, we credit you for the initial $3,500 when you upgrade to a physical configuration. Just like in a shared environment, in a dedicated environment, everything is multi-tenant, and we estimate being able to run approximately 150 users in the physical configuration.

Recurring costs: To keep things simple, use $44 per user per month as your recurring cost for partner hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM. We do not have a user minimum; our pricing is based on per-user-per-month service consumption. Although we do not have a user minimum, the minimum monthly recurring cost is $450. The monthly recurring cost is the greater of the total per-user service consumption or the minimum cost. For more details, visit our page on the monthly recurring prices for Hosted Microsoft CRM.

What we deliver (are responsible for) in a dedicated hosted environment:

• Server is running, operational and accessible
• Windows, SQL, SSRS and CRM are accessible
• Windows Security Updates
• Backups (Incremental every 2 hours, Full daily, weekly offsite)
• Out-of-the-box CRM features

Upon request from the customer, we will also deliver the following at no additional cost:

• CRM updates released by Microsoft
• CRM upgrades released by Microsoft

However, if Customer would like us to perform CRM updates and upgrades, we are not responsible for:

• Out-of-the-box CRM, SSRS, SQL, etc., features impacted by customer customization
• Any customizations deployed by the customer that do not work after updates or upgrades

PLEASE NOTE ON THE ABOVE: If Customer would like us to troubleshoot any issues following updates or upgrades, or requires us to restore any information from tapes, all of our time would be billable.

Note: We offer support for Microsoft accelerators for Microsoft Dynamics CRM within a dedicated environment. Microsoft offers these accelerators free of charge, and all newly released accelerators can be downloaded here.

For more information about our services, please allow an xRM account executive to follow up with you.

Start your own Microsoft Dynamics CRM demo to take a closer look.

About xRM

Thank you for visiting xRM.com. xRM.com is a Microsoft Partner and Microsoft Dynamics Inner Circle invitee providing application hosting, software development, and consulting. We are unique in that we offer our customers unparalleled choice and flexibility when it comes to deployment models (on-premise, hosted, or hybrid) and professional services. From presales to go-live support, from proof of concepts in a hosted model to implementations in an on-premise model, from demonstrations to trainings, we are your single source.

Our goal is simple: to understand what challenges your business is facing, and provide end-to-end solutions using primarily Microsoft technologies. Our motto of "any business, anywhere, anything", speaks to our unique ability to provide services to companies of any size and geographic location, via any deployment model, while leveraging the Microsoft .NET Framework to build and deliver any type of solution.

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