Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server is a .NET-based Windows Service application that works exclusively with SQL Server databases. It uses the Windows Communication Framework as the communication protocol for RoleTailored clients and for Web services. It can execute multiple client requests in parallel and serve other clients by providing Web service access to authenticated clients.

A key difference between the two-tier architecture with the Classic client and three-tier architecture with the RoleTailored client and Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server is that business logic runs on the server instead of the client in the three-tier architecture. A simple example is the FILE.CREATE function. In previous versions of Microsoft Dynamics NAV, files are created on the client when code is run. With the RoleTailored architecture, the files are created on the service itself.

Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server provides an additional layer of security between the clients and the database. It leverages the authentication features of the Windows Communications Framework to provide another layer of user authentication and uses impersonation to ensure that business logic is executed in a process that has been instantiated by the user who submitted the request. Authorization and logging of user requests is still performed on a per-user basis. This ensures that all Windows authentication and Microsoft Dynamics NAV roles and permissions that have been granted to the user are correct. It also ensures that business logic–level auditing is still performed.

Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server is installed when you select either the Server Installation Option or the Developer Environment Installation Option in Microsoft Dynamics NAV Setup.

NoteNote

Installing Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server on encrypted drives is not supported. You may run into issues if the server runs as a user that does not have access rights to the encrypted files.

NoteNote

For certain Automation tasks, you must run Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server with administrator permissions.

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