We're currently testing Microsoft Dynamics CRM hosted by Fpweb. I've been asked by the lead on the project how we can increase the speed at which CRM pages in IE load. The delay seems reasonable to me for a virtual server located across the country.
Has anyone succeeded in speeding things up with aggressive caching (i.e. a WAN accelerator) or by some other means? Do your employees complain about the speed of hosted Dynamics CRM?
It depends on your version of Microsoft CRM, but there are some things you can do to speed things up. See the following articles as a reference, noting that these steps for enabling WCF Compression are already done in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online environments. If you want a generic test for seeing performance across a network to a Microsoft CRM Server from different offices, you can access the following URL: http(s):///tools/diagnostics/diag.aspx , which is available in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 and will show bandwidth and latency results as well as the client machine JavaScript performance. See http://blogs.msdn.com/b/crminthefield/archive/2012/04/09/using-the-crm-diagnostics-page-to-capture-network-performance.aspx for reference.
I have seen testing results with WAN Accelerators and they can help improve performance especially if you have users in remote locations with higher network latencies. Other tips to help are more to do with the customizations in Microsoft CRM. Keep as much as possible in server side plugins vs. JavaScript code and if using JavaScript code, use tools to minimize the JavaScript code to keep that content as small as possible.
"Enable compression using a command line.
a. Open the Command Prompt on the CRM Server.
b. Run the following command:
%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe set config -section:system.webServer/httpCompression /+"dynamicTypes.[mimeType='application/soap%u002bxml; charset=utf-8',enabled='true']" /commit:apphost
c. Reset IIS for the setting to take effect.
Enable compression by manually updating the ApplicationHost.Config
a. On the CRM Server Navigate to: C:\Windows\System32\Inetsrv\Config\applicationHost.config and open it with notepad.
b. Search for the Section: “” and in that section you should fine an entry that looks like this:
c., Below that, add the following line:
d. Save the file and reset IIS for the setting to take effect.
Note: For additional information about configuring HTTP compression, on TechNet, see the article Configuring HTTP Compression in IIS 7 "
CRM isn't very fast to start with, using a hosted solution isn't helping, but bringing it in house probably isn't going to help as much as you'd think. Caching could help, or really screw with the system, depending on what customizations you're running and how often you update data.
We use hosted Dynamics CRM (not from Fpweb but still) and don't get many complaints. It isn't superspeedy but it is good enough. Because of this, we've not tried to do any WAN acceleration or anything else.
