Introduction
Microsoft announced the deprecation of the Export to Data Lake feature in Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations as of October 15, 2023. Organizations using this functionality for BI reporting have 12 months from that date to migrate to the new service to avoid disruptions. Fortunately, the alternative solution—Azure Synapse Link—offers significant upgrades and benefits. Microsoft will maintain the Export to Data Lake feature until November 2024, but no new D365 F&SCM environments will be able to deploy it thereafter.
Azure Synapse Link simplifies operational processes, reduces latency, and cuts costs. To leverage these benefits and preserve your D365 F&SCM reports, prompt action is required.
Understanding Data Lake Integration
In D365 F&SCM, Data Lake integration provided a centralized repository for storing and analysing large volumes of structured and unstructured data. This enabled efficient data extraction, transformation, and analysis, generating valuable insights for informed decision-making.
Understanding Synapse Link
Azure Synapse Link for Dataverse integrates all Dynamics data used for analytics. This feature supports near-real-time analytics on operational data within Azure Synapse Analytics without complex data movement or ETL processes. It enables direct connections from Power BI to D365F&SCM data, facilitating efficient reporting and analytics. Costs are relatively low and based on compute, transfer, storage, and networking usage with Synapse Link, typically under a thousand dollars per month in total.
Why is Microsoft Deprecating D365 F&SCM Data Lake Integration?
Microsoft's mandate requires replacing existing data export technologies like BYOD and Data Lake Integration with Synapse Link for Dataverse, unifying export methods across D365CE and D365F&SCM. The Export to Data Lake process, reliant on the Common Data Model Util Tool and CSV files, had performance limitations. Though not explicitly stated by Microsoft, these issues ikely drove the decision to transition to Synapse Link, despite the associated costs for customers to transition.
Deprecation Timeline
The official deprecation date for Data Lake integration is November 1, 2024. Businesses reliant on this functionality must prioritize their transition plan.
