Willy-Peter Schaub's Cave of Chamomile Simplicity

Team System (VSTS) … a view after completing another R&D cycle

We are on the verge of competing the second major R&D cycle on VSTS evaluation and readiness training in-house.

The second wave included primarily project managers and the different viewpoints and expectations were both interesting and challenging.

What are the true challenges of VSTS?

• The installation is still not straight forward and http://www.scottcreynolds.com/PermaLink.aspx?guid=a8ad7061-9473-4324-86c2-b709f8d739e7 shows that reading the instructions and release notes is not a recommendation, but a non negotiable prerequisite.
• The product is still much unknown and thus not trusted by both the development community and overall stakeholder community.
• The maturity of some of the steps as outlined in our http://www.drp.co.za/posters/0202_MicrosoftTeamSystem.jpg process map are not yet in a state of maturity that we would like the technology to be in. For example, the modeling tools and the overall domain specific language (DSL) environments are currently in an immense era of growth and at times instability or incompleteness.
• The options and possibilities are endless; making it important that pre-implementation planning is conducted on at least this engagement. It is important to define the objectives of all stakeholders and create a match matrix of expectations, VSTS and 3^rd party add-ons.

Is VSTS a solution to consider?

In our opinion VSTS is most definitely a product to “seriously” consider. It delivers immense value to all stakeholders, but especially to the build and test cycles of any project, we commonly refer to as the “health pulse” of a project.

The solution, especially the process, must be mapped and customized to suit the environment, not the other way, i.e. the environment to slot into VSTS. The former ensures that VSTS can be implemented piece by piece, with minimal impact on existing environments and with maximum value to all stakeholders.

Our core findings/decisions to date:

• #1: It is optimal to spend some time with all stakeholders, define their requirements and objectives, customize VSTS process to suit environment and then, and only then, implement VSTS.
•  #2: Review the modeling tools and use where they add value, rather than enforcing a datacenter-application-systems-deployment process. Ensure that users are getting value of each step, before making it part of the process.
• #3: Test-Before-Develop and Contract-First are concepts that often raise their heads during VSTS planning. Ensure that all parties understand what testing means, what the different types of testing are and how the VSTS tools map to the various test types … and where there are no tools within VSTS at this stage, i.e. automated fat-client or smart client testing.
• #4: Overall … VSTS is a release 1.0, which is probably the most important realization. One could view some of the missing features and evolving areas as a great problem, however, we see them as a beginning to a better development life cycle environment. VSTS, like all other solutions, is no silver bullet and it is up to us to identify and implement the features of VSTS which add value to the development environment.

Therefore, have a look at VSTS, investigate what it is all about in an isolated research center, but ensure that you take a step back and spend time thinking and planning, before rolling into production environments.

See http://www.drp.co.za/posters/0202_MicrosoftTeamSystem.jpg for a quick reference poster and http://www.saarchitect.net/viewarticle.aspx?articleID=218 for our first VSTS review article.

What is more frustrating building or buying a house?

After going to the nightmare of building two homes we decided that we should move closer to the places of action, namely school and work. As building a house, battling with contractors and builders … who like developers seem to frown upon blueprints and are masters of hiding “stuff” behind plaster … can be emotionally draining, we decided to buy our third and final property.

Agents … well; this is a topic on its own and may get me into serious trouble. What has amazed me after two nerve racking show day weekends is how buyers are “pushed” into buying without thinking.

We were regarded like insane alien creatures when insisting on having a view of the latest and approved building plans. All I can say is that if anyone is planning to buy property, whether it is custom software or customized property; ensure that you get a copy of the plans before committing hard earned cash to the transaction. Do not let yourself be bullied into a deal … (1) plans are a legal document confirming that actual structures matches approved structures, (2) there are likely no better offers and definitely not “many” … else why would you be completing an offer with an over enthusiastic agent and (3) you will be the one staying in the structure … once you sign, you are on your own.

Perhaps we should have opted for building again … then again no.

Welcome to the Microsoft Connected Services Framework (CSF) Architecture

Welcome to the Microsoft Connected Services Framework Architecture (CSF), an integrated, server-based software solution for building and managing services using a service-oriented architecture (SOA).  The solution allows the creation of composite services using Web Services and delivers “out-of-the-box” identity management, profile management, Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) integration, and service isolation services.

While Microsoft is currently gearing the solution at the telecommunication, media and entertainment services, we believe that although the value-add services are tightly coupled with these vertical business environments, the core services of the solution are vertical business environment agnostic and therefore reusable in any business environment pursuing service oriented architectures.

For the complete extract, please refer to http://www.drp.co.za/default.asp?id=media/content_editorials.

BBD MTU DRP - Session 1 Feedback

• NOTE
  • You need access to the BBD network to gain access to the references marked with a asterix (*).
• Support
  • drpsupport@bbd.co.za
  • http://sus-serv/sites/drp/Lists/DRP Support/AllItems.aspx  *
• Sites
  • http://teamsystemrocks.com
  • http://www.drp.co.za
  • http://sus-serv/sires/drp *
  • www.saarchitect.net
  • www.sadeveloper.net
  • www.gotdotnet.com
  • www.sysinternals.com
  • \\fileserver2\drp\Cassini (Drp)  *
• RSS Feeds
  • http://weblogs.asp.net/cmenegay
  • http://dotnet.org.za/mtu
  • http://teamsystemrocks.com/blogs
  • http://dotnet.org.za/willy

1. Have a look at http://www.drp.co.za
2. Have a look at http://sus-serv/sites/drp
3. View VSTS Overview Snippet
4. View VSTS Designing Snippet
5. View VSTS Modelling Snippet
6. View VSTS Testing Snippet
7. Send an email to drpsupport@bbd.co.za by latest Friday afternoon with:
   • Comments on snippets
   • List of expectations of DRP
   • List of concerns, if any.

1. Q: Will there be a certification?
   • A: Yes. Everyone who achieves an average of 75% or higher will receive a DRP certificate. The final score is made up of (a) attendance, (b)  Enthusiasm shown, (c) completion of homework and assignments and (d) exams which will be done in October.
2. Q: It is a bit over my head...
   • A: The first session is an information dump (overload) and merely intended to raise the awareness of the forthcoming technologies. If you remember the products, their names and their code names, then you have achieved the objective of session #1.
3. Q: Does information apply to analysts?
   • A: If you are referring to Systems Analysts then the answers is most definitely yes. If you are referring to business analysts then in our opinion the answer should be yes, because we are trying to raise awareness of technology for all project stakeholders to be able to make more effective decisions based on technology and for the great divide between business and technical staff to be chiselled down. The DRP is geared at technical analysts, architects and developers, however, we will ensure that there is value for business analysts as well.
   • A2: We recommend that attendees group together when it comes to "hands-on" homework, ensuring that those not familiar with coding can be assisted by the developers ... and the developers assisted by the analysts during the analysis and design phases.
4. Q: Is it possible to show screen shots of new products?
   • A: Yes where applicable. Something like Indigo will be a network trace by Mike and therefore not very "audience friendly", however, all others will be shown in future.
5. Q: Should we not assume everyone knows nothing?
   • A: We are running this DRP based on the assumption that everyone knows nothing. Those who have already attended a DRP Bootcamp or DRP Sessions will go through repetitions, however, we must cater for those that have never been exposed to .NET.

VSTS - Q&A from our R&D environment

Some Questions and Answers we gathered during the latest inhouse VSTS readiness program.

1. Q: I would like to understand the licensing / modules (High Level)
   A: http://msdn.microsoft.com/howtobuy/vs2005/ contains information on licensing information.
   
2. Q: What versions and options are there? Lightweight to enterprise?
   A: http://msdn.microsoft.com/howtobuy/vs2005/editions/team/ lists the various flavours. There is no lightweight VSTS at this stage. The size depends on how the product is implemented and how the team uses it.
   
3. Q: What is the management overhead on a project?
   A: The overhead is the initial ramp up by the team members. Once accustomed, the work item based environment should minimise the project management overhead and improve productivity.
   
4. Q: How should it be introduced into an organization, including BB&D?
   A: In steps ... the big bang of implementing everything of VSTS does not seem feasible. Instead one should implement feature by feature and determine what does and what does not add value to the environment.
   
5. Q: Is this a product that is going to be around in 5 years?
   A: 5 years is a long time in IT, however, based on current investment and integration I would personally take a bet that the product will be with us for a very long time. It is a strategic product.
   
6. Q: Is this a technology that traps organizations into MS products / dev environments?
   i.e. VSTS only works with VSS, VSS needs SQL 2005, SQL 2005 needs IIS, IIS needs ………
   Perception: The Microsoft products are becoming very dependant on one another and that you need everything installed just to write a “Hello World” app.
   A: There is no trapping. Visual Studio can operate without VSTS, without VSS, without SQL2005, without Team Build, without Team test, etc. Nothing stops us from using PVCS, VSS, NUnit or other tools. However, to use and make optimal usage of VSTS we need to use VSTS and its prerequisites, which are SQL2005 at this stage.
   
7. Q: Who manages the VSTS environment the dev manager / dev team lead / or project manager.
   does it get managed by company or by project?
   A: VSTS is managed by the VSTS administrator, whereas projects are managed by Project Admins. The project manager can be the project admin, however, in my opinion the VSTS admin should be a dedicated support resource.
   

8. Q: How does VSTS handle code churn in terms of generated code?
   A: Code churn stats is gathered during the build and reported on the team project portal site.

9. Q: How can one test the unit tests and how de we find the budget and time to do these?
   A: Unit test code should be part of any project and is therefore not an additional cost or time? Am I missing the question? VSTS simplifies the creation of unit test code we should already be creating and allows automated execution thereof.

saArchitect Session:What is open source and how can the SA community contribute? - by Anton de Vet

Presentation for the “saArchitect Session:What is open source and how can the SA community contribute? - by Anton de Vet “saArchitect Session:What is open source and how can the SA community contribute? - by Anton de Vet“ held in August has been posted on:

http://www.drp.co.za/default.asp?id=media/content_editorials