This is to inform you that Service Pack 1 for Dynamics NAV 5.0 has finally been released for Belgium. (And other GRP2 countries). You can download it on PartnerSource.

Why is this so interesting?

Well besides numerous bug fixes and new functionality there has been put a lot of effort in performance optimalisation towards Sql Server.

First of all, the famous SIFT-tables have been replaced by indexed views:

Microsoft Dynamics NAV now uses "Indexed Views" to maintain SIFT totals. Indexed views are a standard SQL Server feature. An indexed view is similar to a normal SQL Server view except that the contents have been materialized (computed and stored) to speed up the retrieval of data.

Microsoft Dynamics NAV creates one indexed view for each SIFT key that is enabled. When you create a SIFT key for a table, you must set the MaintainSIFTIndex property for that key to Yes to enable the SIFT key and create the indexed view. Once SQL Server has created the indexed view, it maintains the contents of the view whenever any changes are made to the base table. If you set the MaintainSIFTIndex property for that key to No, SQL Server drops the indexed view and stops maintaining the totals.

Second of all, Dynamics NAV will make use of Bulk Inserts:

Microsoft Dynamics NAV automatically buffers inserts in order to send them to SQL Server in one go.

By using bulk inserts, Microsoft Dynamics NAV reduces the number of server calls thereby improving performance. It also improves scalability by delaying the actual insert until the last possible moment in the transaction. This reduces the amount of time that tables are locked; especially tables that contain SIFT indexes.

So the Dynamics NAV 5 SP1 seems to promise some interesting performance boosts when working on Sql Server 2005.