AX 2012 R3 upgrade with high-availability clustering for a global manufacturer

Overview

AB Mauri is one of the world's leading yeast and bakery ingredient manufacturers, operating 52 manufacturing plants across 32 countries with sales in over 100 markets. Part of Associated British Foods (ABF), AB Mauri supplies yeast, dough conditioners, bakery mixes, and specialty ingredients to industrial bakeries, artisan bakers, and food service companies worldwide.

Veriland Consulting delivered a Dynamics AX 2012 R3 upgrade with a high-availability (HA) cluster architecture — ensuring continuous ERP operations across AB Mauri's global manufacturing network while resolving critical system issues that were impacting day-to-day operations.

The Challenge

AB Mauri's existing Dynamics AX environment was running on an older version that was creating operational risk across their global manufacturing operations.

• Critical system fixes required: The existing AX environment had accumulated a backlog of unresolved issues affecting core business processes — from production scheduling and inventory management to financial reporting — that required urgent remediation alongside the upgrade.
• No high availability: The current infrastructure lacked redundancy, meaning any server failure could take the ERP system offline across multiple manufacturing sites — an unacceptable risk for a continuous-production environment.
• 24/7 manufacturing dependency: With 52 plants operating around the clock, AB Mauri could not afford extended downtime during the upgrade. The migration had to be carefully planned to minimise disruption to production.
• Global complexity: Operations spanning 32 countries meant the upgrade had to account for multi-currency, multi-language, and jurisdictional regulatory requirements while maintaining a unified platform.
• Performance under load: The upgraded environment needed to handle the transaction volumes generated by dozens of manufacturing plants, warehouses, and sales offices operating concurrently.

Our Solution

Veriland delivered a dual-track engagement: upgrading the Dynamics AX platform to R3 while simultaneously architecting a high-availability cluster and resolving the backlog of critical system issues.

Dynamics AX 2012 R3 Upgrade

The upgrade brought AB Mauri to the latest supported version of AX 2012 — R3 — unlocking improved manufacturing execution, enhanced warehouse management, updated financial reporting, and better cross-company interoperability. Veriland managed the full code upgrade, data migration, and regression testing process.

High-Availability Cluster Architecture

Veriland designed and implemented a high-availability cluster for the AX environment, eliminating single points of failure across the application tier, database tier, and supporting services. The HA architecture includes:

• SQL Server Always On Availability Groups: Database-level redundancy ensuring automatic failover with zero data loss in the event of a primary node failure.
• AOS (Application Object Server) load balancing: Multiple AOS instances behind a load balancer, distributing user sessions and batch processing across redundant servers.
• Batch server clustering: Dedicated batch processing nodes with automatic job redistribution, ensuring critical scheduled tasks — MRP runs, financial postings, reporting — continue uninterrupted.
• Monitoring and alerting: Proactive health monitoring across all cluster nodes with automated alerting for performance degradation or failover events.

Critical Fixes & Stabilisation

Alongside the upgrade, Veriland worked through a prioritised backlog of system fixes covering production scheduling, inventory valuation, intercompany transactions, and financial posting issues. Each fix was developed, tested in a staging environment, and deployed as part of the upgrade — ensuring that AB Mauri went live on R3 with a stable, reliable platform.

Performance Optimisation

Post-upgrade, Veriland conducted performance tuning across the database, AOS configuration, and batch scheduling to ensure the system could handle concurrent operations from all manufacturing sites without degradation.

Key Results

The combined upgrade and HA implementation delivered a fundamentally more reliable and performant ERP environment for AB Mauri's global operations.

• High-availability ERP: Automatic failover across application and database tiers eliminated single points of failure, ensuring continuous operations for 52 manufacturing plants.
• Critical issues resolved: A backlog of system fixes affecting production, inventory, and finance was cleared as part of the upgrade — delivering a stable R3 platform from day one.
• Minimal production disruption: Careful planning and phased cutover ensured that manufacturing operations continued with minimal downtime during the transition.
• Improved performance: Database and application tuning delivered faster transaction processing, shorter MRP run times, and improved user responsiveness across all sites.
• Global platform consistency: All operations — across 32 countries — now run on the same upgraded R3 platform with unified financial reporting and intercompany capabilities.
• Foundation for future modernisation: AX 2012 R3 with HA clustering provides a stable, supported platform and a clear upgrade path to Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations when the business is ready.

Technology Stack

AB Mauri's upgraded environment is built on a resilient, high-availability Microsoft stack optimised for global manufacturing operations.

Dynamics AX 2012 R3

Enterprise ERP covering manufacturing execution, supply chain, inventory management, financials, and intercompany operations across 32 countries.

SQL Server Always On

High-availability database clustering with automatic failover and synchronous replication, ensuring zero data loss during node failures.

Windows Server Failover Clustering

Infrastructure-level clustering for AOS, batch servers, and supporting services, providing automatic workload redistribution during failures.

Load Balancing

Network load balancing across multiple AOS instances, distributing user sessions and ensuring consistent performance during peak manufacturing hours.