Managing your Business Central storage is crucial. Business Central took the step to utilise the cloud infrastructure around three years ago. Each organisation was permitted up to 80gb storage space which typically, is more than enough. In those rare instances where more is required, you can contact a representative at Microsoft who will provide a fee for storage space resolutions in Business Central. As mentioned in the blog on Wave 1 of Business Central’s 2021 release, the standard 80gb allowance will increase by 2gb for each essential user and by 3gb for every premium user on the customer’s system. Where storage needs to be purchased, the price of additional gigabytes has been reduced from $40 to $10, and where the total number of gigabytes exceeds 100, this figure is discounted further, being cut in half to $500, where previously customer’s would expect to pay $4000.
If you want additional information, make sure to read one of Microsoft’s posts on storage.
As well as the discounts to pricing, Microsoft are committed to tackling the storage conundrum in alternate ways. Microsoft are introducing several changes that will reduce the amount of data used, while continuing to do what you what you always have done.
Stabilising your data usage
Here are some of the changes:
One example of this is SQL Compression, which has already begun to come into play. As the name suggests, this involves squishing down the storage required for features already within Business Central. Not only does this increase the amount of storage available looking forward, but also increases the performance of the system.
Automated Log File Management is a means of managing files within the system. It will look to remove old files from ISV solutions and the base application. Crucially, this increases available storage space whilst simultaneously enhancing performance.
Another way is altering what contributes to the allotted storage space. What’s known as binary storage is something that will not be included when checking data usage. In future, this form of data will constitute a form of data in a separate storage space with a reduced price. On a similar note to this, Microsoft are developing a separate storage system which can be used for historical data, enhancing the available space in the main storage system for other information.
Microsoft are currently looking into a bug causing service functionality to use up more data than is expected. This is no fault of the user and Microsoft are looking to remedy this and issue alerts to administrators when this error occurs, and to which sets of data the excessive storage usage has developed.
How else can the user manage Business Central storage?
A method within the user’s powers to help resolve any Business Central storage issues is by compressing data. This works by grouping together data, that would usually be separated by date, into one source. This is only available for closed fiscal years, where the vender ledger entry field ‘open’ option is set to ‘no’. This prevents any unnecessary confusion. Using this, it can be amended so that, say, in a month period there was only one debit and credit relating to a particular account. To see how the compressions have gone, search for ‘Date Compr. Registers’ page.
The number of filters you want to retain is limited when using this. It also varies dependant on what type of data you are compressing. For example, vendor ledger entries keep these fields:
- Document Type
- Currency Code
- Posting Group
- Amount
- Remaining Amount
- Original Amount. (LCY)
- Remaining Amount. (LCY)
- Amount (LCY) , Purchase (LCY)
- Inv. Discount (LCY) , Pmt. Disc. Given (LCY)
- Pmt. Disc. Possible
- Posting date
- Vendor No.
Whereas, bank account ledger entries allow you to keep:
- Document No.
- Our Contact
- Global Dimension 1 and 2 Codes
Closing remarks
For more information about storage space resolutions, or anything else Business Central related, please get in touch with us. Finally, to never miss our latest posts, follow us on LinkedIn.
