The Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations architecture is completely overhauled from its predecessor, Dynamics AX 2012 R3. It is built for the cloud, to embrace the investment and innovation happening in the Microsoft Azure cloud. The Finance and Operations architecture is built for the cloud first and uses a modern user interface, integration, and web technologies. Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise edition can be deployed on cloud, on-premises, or as a hybrid. Cloud deployment uses Microsoft Azure, and the production environment is fully managed by Microsoft, while on-premise deployments are deployed locally within a customer's data center.

Hybrid deployment is also called Cloud and Edge, where business-critical operations, such as retail, warehouse management, and so on, can be deployed across distributed on-premise environments and connected to the cloud for a single view of the business, cloud services, and disaster recovery.