AX Word of the Week: AOS

Ok, this is kind of a cheater here because it's actually three words, but it's something that you might hear your System administrator or your IT Department throw around. So what is an AOS?

AOS - Application Object Server

The Application Object Server is one piece of three that make up your AX architecture. The three pieces that make up the AX architecture are the database, the AOS, and the client. The AOS manages the connection between the database and the client and is on its own server(s). If the server that the AOS is on crashes or has any issues, this is the message that users who are trying to log in to AX will see:

This error always elicits a lot of groans and calls to IT.

When this error message is seen, most users groan and start calling their IT Department or System administrator. Hopefully this isn't something that is seen often, but if it is, just know that this is a server issue.

The AOS is also responsible for providing the foundation for the execution of the business logic that makes AX the strong ERP solution that it is. the AOS is very important!

Multiple AOS

You may hear the AX servers referred to as AOS1, AOS2, and so on at your company. It is not uncommon to have multiple AOS environments to balance the load for particularly large companies, or to run large jobs on a different AOS than the one(s) that most users are using.

How do I know which AOS I am connecting to?

You can also easily tell which AOS you are on by looking at the very top of your AX environment while logged in. You should see a long string of words, letters, and numbers. Some you will recognize and others you won't.

The server that the client is connected to can be seen at the top of your AX environment.

The highlighted part of the string is the name of the server that you are connected to. In my demo environment, the name of the server is AX2012R2A. If I had a server AX2012R2B and a server AX2012R2C and I was having trouble, my System Administrator might ask me which server I am logged in to. I can look at the top of my AX environment and easily tell them which AOS I am connecting to.

The session ID that follows is the ID that is assigned to me when I am logged in. If I have more than one AX instance open, I might see multiple different Session IDs and they might be all over the place numerically. That's ok! I found out that Session IDs aren't assigned specifically in numerical order but rather semi-randomly. If you have a particular session that's acting buggy, your System administrator can end that session for you.