Willy-Peter Schaub's Cave of Chamomile Simplicity

VSTS Build - Take #3

Need to automate your build. Here are two excellent references:

http://weblogs.asp.net/dr.netjes/archive/2005/07/20/419957.aspx

VSTS Material Upgrade

We are busy upgrading the poster (see last link below) and would appreciate your comments and suggesstions as to how we can improved the quick reference chart.

Daily Build and Test
http://www.saarchitect.net/viewarticle.aspx?articleID=215

VSTS
http://www.saarchitect.net/viewarticle.aspx?articleID=218

Posters
http://www.drp.co.za/posters/0202_MicrosoftTeamSystem.jpg

Visual Studio CTP June/August has arrived

We have just received the latest CTP media. Although we will not reload BETA-2 with this CTP (December CTP still hurting us ...) we have looked at the documentation which has been immensely improved. The admin help now includes a definition of which user should be added into which group, which was a mystery in previous releases.

Extract from July/CTP media:

To create a new team project in Team Foundation Server, you must be a member of the Team Foundation Administrators group, a member of the Windows SharePoint Services Administrator role, and a member of the SQL Server Reporting Services Content Manager role. The following table indicates the correct security role membership in each of these products for the global security groups in Team Foundation Server.

¹The Team Foundation Valid Users group contains all users and groups that have access to the server. This group contains all users and groups that are members of the team projects that exist on the server. There is no need to manage membership of this group.

²Accounts in the Service Accounts group do not require membership in security roles on Windows SharePoint Services or SQL Server Reporting Services.

After creating a team project, you assign users to different roles to manage their permissions on a per project basis. Windows SharePoint Services sites do not inherit security settings from the top-level site. Conversely, SQL Server Reporting Services item-level security inherits system-level roles. The following table indicates the correct security role membership in each of these products for the project-level security groups in Team Foundation Server.

¹This name is derived from the MSF for Agile Software Development process template. The actual name of project-level security groups will vary based on the chosen process template.

The procedures for managing security role membership in Windows SharePoint Services and SQL Server Reporting Services can be found the product documentation that accompanies each product.

MTU VSTS Readiness

Internal BB&D and MTU notification for our colleagues in the field ...

We are starting a Visual Studio Team System internal technology readiness program tomorrow and will run a weekly workshop on Friday's for 5 weeks. Objective is to introduce this technology to our project managers and technology leads, identify areas which could add value in the development environment in short and long-term and then take appropriate action.

Shout if you are interested to participate.

Why should we consider Indigo?

Yes, it has been formally named “Windows Communication Foundation“, however, we have yet to get used to the formal name as Indigo is simply a much more appealing colour.

I have finally completed the "what is..." and "How to..." section covering this technology in our second book ".NET Enterprise SOlutions ... Interoperability for the Connoiseur" and am more convinced than ever that we have stumbled across a diamond in the rough.

Looking back over more than 20 years of information technology solution design, development, implementation and interoperability, we believe that this product has the potential to make an immense difference for all stakeholders in a distributed solution.

For designers and architects the ability to design for service oriented solutions is no longer a fallacy, developers can implement services with very little effort and concern for connectivity, and deployment administrators can configure, reconfigure or fine-tune the service endpoints at deployment and runtime.,

It speaks for itself, that when we can apply the same, simple programming model that closely conforms to an open industry standard with no additional complexity or performance hit, we have finally got the prospect of a connected system. With Indigo we can focus on the business logic, rather than connecting communication and interoperability bits and pieces.

I will post extracts from the book in the Technology Readiness Ecosystem forums on www.saArchitect.net as soon as the reviewers have given us feedback on the first DRAFT 1.1 that we shared on Wednesday.

Indigo rules ...

VSTS Build Server - Take #2

The environment is finally up and running. You need to ensure that you follow the main installation preparation steps as outlined by Omar. We had ghost workspaces appearing and mapping discrepancies, which kept us occupied for a while and are apparently a BETA issue.

Chris Menegey has the following workaround:

Note: There is a bug in Beta 2 that sometimes prevents the local workspace mapping to be created. This problem is more commonly seen when adding a new Build Type. If the ‘Get Latest Version’ menu item is not enabled, you need to manually create the workspace mapping. To do that, execute the following steps:

1. From the Start button, select All Programs > Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 > Visual Studio Tools > Visual Studio 2005 Command Prompt

2. At the DOS prompt, type CD C:\StudentLabs\CompanyDirectorySolution and press

3. Type h workspace and press

4. Change the Repository Folder to $/CompanyDirectory and the Local Folder to C:\StudentLabs and click OK.

5. At the DOS Prompt type exit and press

6. The Get Latest Version menu option should now be available

I took the mnore radical approach and manually removed and remapped all workspaces. The result is an environment that builds and tests our research project automatically and successfully.

VSTS Rocks!

VSTS Build Server - Take #1

We are re-installing VSTS and as aresult we are reimplementing the build server environment. I will create a few blogs relating to this hopefully quick adventure, in which the answer will hopefully be a regular nightly build, not “42“.

I received some invaluable input from Omar Villarreal regarding build server:

VSTS Team Foundation Version Control

We will be releasing a MTU DRP Snippet on VSTS source control soon ... refer to www.drp.co.za for other snippets.

What about alerts?

• After looking for the ability to raise an alert if checkin policies are violated for some time, Christopher Menegay reminded me that this feature was dropped. What a shame, because as a project owner I would like to know when possible garbage starts creepeing into the source depository.
• If you set Alerts (Team->Alert Menu), such as “Alert me on imports“, please note that you can define multiple recipients and that the alert is per Team Project, not global to Team Foundation Server.

Make sure of signing up on  http://weblogs.asp.net/cmenegay and refering to  http://teamsystemrocks.com.

Technology Readiness Ecosystem Forums

Please note that we have created three new forums under the “Technology Readiness Ecosystem” group on www.saarchitect.net focusing on VSTS, Indigo and our new interoperability book.

VSTS: We want to share Team System success stories, issues and the likes in this forum.

Indigo: We want to share Windows COmmunication Foundation success stories, issues and the likes in this forum.

Book: We will be sharing content as it is released by our editors before launching the book. Your input and comments will be highly appreciated.

.NET Enterprise Solutions... Best Practices for the connoisseur book finally on kalahari.net

You can find the book on:

http://www.kalahari.net/BK/product.asp?toolbar=none&sku=28330119&format=detail

or

https://secure.intersoft.co.za/Index.cfm?fuseaction=books.viewBook&bookID=3527324

Redmond goodbye ...

We completed our CSF workshop today and will publish our findings once we have received answres to all questions and consolidated our thoughts.

Redmond is a vibrant and interesting ecosystem at Microsoft. A really interesting place and filled with many interesting individuals.

We, Ernst and I, are returning to SA tomorrow, leaving at 13:00 Thu and arriving 20:45 Fri ... a loooooooong trip ineed, but definitely worth every pain and effort.

saArchitect Forums (New)

Redmond really exists …

After a comprehensive set of interrogations at boarding, immigration and customs we have finally arrived at Microsoft Redmond. The flight to Seattle via Amsterdam is not a trip worth recommending (very, very long) and the entry into the USA is somewhat daunting. BUT, Redmond really exists, as does Microsoft … cool place. Ernst and I are attending the CSF developer training and will keep you posted on our short trip as soon as possible.

Book “Interoperability for the Connoisseur” Status

We are just about 60% done. My last section is on CSF and to date I have completed the “what is Indigo” and “how to Indigo” sections, covered VSTS and completed my parts of the “how to interoperability” sections. How do you, as the community, want to see feedback on our R&D on Indigo, VSTS and other exciting technology … on this and the MTU Rss feed, community sessions, in the book, or a combination of all plus more?

Please let us know, so that we can start sharing our findings as effectively as possible.