Model driven architecture in AX 2012

AX 2012 has come up with a unique model driven architecture . A model is logical grouping of elements within a layer.This architecture helps in situation multiple projects /Solutions must operate together. We can consider the below scenario :


A company has two lines of business. They manufacture and sell medical products. They also manufacture, sell and service specialized equipment to produce medical products.

• Solution A is an advanced vertical solution for the production of
food and drug products. Among other things, this solution adds a
new field to the item table to store the government approval number.
This is stored in the ISV layer and in the model MEDICAL.

• Solution B is an advanced vertical solution for managing the ongoing
service of equipment which is sold to customers. Among other
things, this solution adds a new field to the item table for the default
service period. This is stored in the ISV layer and in the model
SERVICE.

• You can use models to view the modifications to the item table made
by all ISV solutions and easily see where each change originated.


How does Model helps :

• The development environment for Microsoft Dynamics AX lets you create a project for each model that is installed. Therefore, you can quickly see all the installed customization in a layer for a given model.
• When you import a model, elements in the model that you are importing may conflict with another model in the same layer. You can now create a conflict model in the patch layer that is associated with the layer that you are working in. You can then resolve the conflicts in the conflict model. In earlier versions, no warnings about conflicts were displayed. Instead, elements were just replaced.
• You can now leave the rest of the layer intact when you uninstall a model. In earlier versions, if you wanted to uninstall customization, you had to either remove the customizations manually from the AOT or remove the layer.