Professional application lifecycle management with visual studio 2013

xxix CHAPTER 1 Introduction to Application Lifecycle Management with Visual Studio 2013.. He is one consult-of the original Microsconsult-oft Application Lifecycle Management MVPs, and

WITH VISUAL STUDIO 2013

INTRODUCTION xxix

CHAPTER 1 Introduction to Application Lifecycle Management with Visual Studio 2013 1

▸ PART I TEAM FOUNDATION SERVER CHAPTER 2 Introduction to Team Foundation Server 11

CHAPTER 3 Using Centralized Team Foundation Version Control 37

CHAPTER 4 Distributed Version Control with Git and Team Foundation Server 77

CHAPTER 5 Team Foundation Build 93

CHAPTER 6 Release Management 127

CHAPTER 7 Common Team Foundation Server Customizations 153

▸ PART II BUILDING THE RIGHT SOFTWARE CHAPTER 8 Introduction to Building the Right Software 167

CHAPTER 9 Storyboarding 177

CHAPTER 10 Capturing Stakeholder Feedback 193

▸ PART III PROJECT MANAGEMENT CHAPTER 11 Introduction to Project Management 203

CHAPTER 12 Agile Planning and Tracking 233

CHAPTER 13 Using Reports, Portals, and Dashboards 257

Continues

Component, and Class Diagrams 289

CHAPTER 16 Analyzing Applications Using Architecture Explorer, Dependency Graphs, and Code Maps 317

CHAPTER 17 Using Layer Diagrams to Model and Enforce Application Architecture 343

▸ PART V SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 18 Introduction to Software Development 357

CHAPTER 19 Unit Testing 369

CHAPTER 20 Code Analysis, Code Metrics, Code Clone Analysis, and CodeLens 397

CHAPTER 21 Profi ling and Performance 425

CHAPTER 22 Debugging with IntelliTrace 465

▸ PART VI TESTING CHAPTER 23 Introduction to Software Testing 489

CHAPTER 24 Manual Testing 505

CHAPTER 25 Coded User Interface Testing 537

CHAPTER 26 Web Performance and Load Testing 563

CHAPTER 27 Lab Management 609

INDEX 633

with Visual Studio ® 2013

with Visual Studio ® 2013

Mickey Gousset Martin Hinshelwood Brian A Randell Brian Keller Martin Woodward

Indianapolis, IN 46256

www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: The publisher and the author make no representations or warranties with

respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifi cally disclaim all warranties, including without limitation warranties of fi tness for a particular purpose No warranty may be created or extended by sales or promotional materials The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for every situation This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional ser- vices If professional assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom The fact that an organization or Web site is referred

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For general information on our other products and services please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at (877) 762-2974, outside the United States at (317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002.

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Trademarks: Wiley, Wrox, the Wrox logo, Programmer to Programmer, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered

trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc and/or its affi liates, in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission Visual Studio is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners John Wiley & Sons, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

To Evangelina and Kaiden Without whom I would be

lost at this time of great change.

—Martin Hinshelwood

To Juliane, Brent, and Nicole I love you.

—Brian Randell

MICKEY GOUSSET is a Principal Consultant for Infront Consulting Group, a ing company focused on the Microsoft System Center family of products He is one

consult-of the original Microsconsult-oft Application Lifecycle Management MVPs, and co-author consult-of

several books about ALM, including Professional Team Foundation Server (Wrox, 2006), Professional Application Lifecycle Management with Visual Studio 2010 (Wrox, 2010), and Professional Application Lifecycle Management with Visual Studio 2012 (Wrox,

2012) Gousset runs ALM Rocks! (www.almrocks.com), where he writes about Visual Studio, TFS, and ALM in general He speaks around the world on ALM and System Center topics When not writing or working with computers, Mickey enjoys a range of hobbies, from playing on Xbox Live (Gamer Tag: HereBDragons) to participating in local community theatre But nothing beats his favorite pastime: spending time with Amye, Emma, Meg, and their four dogs, two cats, and one fi sh

MARTIN HINSHELWOOD is the Principal Consultant for naked ALM Consulting, a technical and management consultancy based in Scotland that focuses on Visual Studio ALM, TFS, and Scrum He has been a Visual Studio ALM MVP for six years running and was even ALM MVP of the Year in 2011 As well as working with the Visual Studio ALM Rangers and being an ALM Ranger Champion in 2011, Martin participates in the lean-agile community Martin has been a Professional Scrum Trainer with Scrum.org since early 2010 He regularly teaches Scrum courses around the world and works as an Engagement Manager for Agility Path Somehow he also fi nds time to maintain his blog

(http://nkdalm.net/MrHinshBlog) and a YouTube Channel, and even speaks at many events around the world (http://nkdalm.net/MrHinshEvents.) In his spare time Martin can be found on excur-sions with his favourite people (Evangelina and Kaiden) and occasionally on Xbox

(http://nkdalm.net/MrHinshOnXbox)

BRIAN RANDELL is a Partner with MCW Technologies LLC For more than 20 years

he has been building software solutions He educates teams on Microsoft gies via writing and training—both in-person and on demand He speaks regularly

technolo-at shows small and large including Microsoft’s TechEd and PDC in the United Sttechnolo-ates, Europe, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand He’s also a consultant for companies small and large, worldwide, including Fortune 100 companies like Microsoft Brian is a passionate software craftsman who still enjoys coding as he helps teams to improve their processes from idea

to shipping, and to production management and monitoring As a long time virtualization junkie, Brian’s an expert in Hyper-V and Lab Management In addition, he’s become obsessed over the last few years with natural user interfaces and how to create compelling user experiences regardless of platform In early 2010, he toured the world hitting most of the continents (sadly no penguins were trained) prepping Microsoft employees and Microsoft partners for the Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 launch In 2012, he and his team built some of the fi rst training content and demos for Microsoft using Visual Studio 2012, Team Foundation Server 2012, and Windows 8 For the 2013 release, he

tion lifecycle management He has been with Microsoft since 2002 and has presented

at conferences around the world, including TechEd, PDC, and Build Outside of work

he enjoys spending time with his lovely wife Elisa and their awesome son Paxton

MARTIN WOODWARD is a Senior Program Manager on the Team Foundation Server team at Microsoft Previously, Woodward was also Team System Most Valuable Professional (MVP) of the year Not only does he bring unique insight into the inner workings of Team Foundation Server, he brings a cross-platform perspective that he is always happy to share through his writings, on his blog at www woodwardweb.com, or

when speaking at events internationally Martin also co-authored Professional Application Lifecycle

Management with Visual Studio 2010 (Wrox, 2010), Professional Team Foundation Server 2010

(Wrox, 2011), Professional Application Lifecycle Management with Visual Studio 2012 (Wrox, 2012), and Professional Team Foundation Server 2012 (Wrox, 2013).

Mary Beth Wakefi eld

DIRECTOR OF COMMUNIT Y MARKETING

I’M FORTUNATE TO BE SURROUNDED by ALM MVPs who make my life much easier Brian Randell and Martin Hinshelwood, thank you for taking this journey with me You both have created some amazing content in this book, and it is much better for it And we are even closer friends because

of it Mike Fourie, I just don’t know what to say You are the most amazing technical editor I have had You have the ability to point out all the things I missed, without making me look bad And your depth of knowledge is astounding Anthony Borton, thank you for all your help and assistance with the book To our editors Bob Elliot and especially Tom Dinse, thank you so much for keeping

us on track and schedule, and working with us when “stuff” happens Tom, you are an amazing tor that I would write a book with anytime And fi nally, to Amye, Emma (14), and Meg (10), thank you for putting up with my schedule and my late hours in getting this project completed I could not have done it without your love and support

edi-—Mickey Gousset

WITH THE MANY CHANGES IN THE LAST SIX MONTHS I don’t know where to start or why I agreed to write a book of all things I want to thank my parents Anne and John for helping me settle back into Scotland (it was quite a shock after three years in Seattle), without you guys I would not have been able to start my own business My wonderful kids Evangelina (6) and Kaiden (4) for their patience and distraction from the world around us, you make it all worth it Finally I want to thank Mickey Gousset and Brian Randell for putting up with my newbie questions and issues, and Mike Fourie for taking it easy with the technical editing

—Martin Hinshelwood

FIRST, TO MY DEAR FRIEND MICKEY for asking me to join him We keep fi nding new ways to have fun To Mr Hinsh, I’ve enjoyed getting to know you better and look forward to many more friendly exchanges; exchanges only friends have Mr Keller, I still think fondly about fi rst working with you when you were a Product Manager and the fun we had on your fi rst tour of duty outside the Unites States speaking Congratulations on being a husband and father, it suites you And to Mr Woodward, what can I say mate? I only wish Ballycastle were up the road for me too That said, every visit we have is warm and wonderful no matter what part of the globe we’re at All four of you made this book better and I thank you for having me on the journey Thank you to everyone at Wrox especially Bob Elliot, Tom Dinse, and Kezia Endsley Your editorial guidance and continued pokes

as well as catching all the little things, got this book done in fi ne shape Thank you To our

techni-have infl uenced my writing and general geekiness To my business partner Ken Getz—you’ve done more for me than you’ll ever know I’m a better human because of you Thank you To Dave and Barbara Brady who gave me my fi rst “computer” job You gave me more than a job You put me on the path to a career I love Thank you To Ian Griffi ths, you’re an inspiration to work with but a better friend to break bread with—I look forward to more fun in the future To Matt Nunn, from our fi rst fun in Australia to the wonderful solutions we’ve built, it’s been great working on the “art

of the possible.” To Jon Flanders, I know at your wedding you said you still didn't like me That's

OK I'll take what I can get And to Mr Brian Harry It started with Visual SourceSafe You wrote that automation interface one summer and I was lucky to work with you Your work ethic inspires

as does your dedication to customer and craft Thank you for always being there

To my fi rst set of co-authors on my fi rst published book: Dr Joe Hummel, Justin Gehtland, Jason Masterman, and Ted Pattison Gents, there are times in your life that you wonder what you were thinking That book hurt, but everything has a purpose I said never again but I did and the lessons learned helped Beyond that book however, all of our teaching together, the Guerilla events, and all the other “fun” continues to warm my heart with great memories when I think of each of you.All the things I know about Visual Studio and TFS come from hard work and having a cadre of wonderful people to answer questions This includes two special groups to me: Microsoft employ-ees in DevDiv and the Microsoft ALM MVPs Over the years countless e-mails, IM conversations, and phone calls have been exchanged as well as many wonderful face-to-face conversations (even the ones that were loud) Thank you I can’t thank you all individually, but I do want to highlight

a few in particular from Microsoft working on ALM and TFS, including Doug Seven, David Starr, Larry Guger, Grant Holliday, William Bartholomew, Rob Caron, Chuck Sterling, Chris Patterson, Peter Provost, Buck Hodges, Aaron Bjork, Justin Marks, Jamie Cool, Jeff Behler, Ed Holloway, Ed Blankenship, Ewald Hofman, Matthew Mitrik, Philip Kelley, Chad Boles, Sean McBreen, Tracy Trewin, Will Smythe, Ravi Shanker, Vijay Machiraju, and Subrahmanyam Veera Mandavilli To my fellow MVPs, you’re all wonderful, I’m lucky to have you as peers and thank all of you for your help but in particular want to call out Jeff Levinson, Neno Loje, Richard Hundhausen, Adam Cogan, Ben Day, David V Corbin, Ognjen Bajic, Thomas Schissler, Jesse Houwing, Dylan Smith, Richard Banks, and Jason Stangroome Anyone not mentioned directly and forgotten, I’m sorry

Finally, I need to thank my dear, lovely wife You are my best friend Even though you told me not

to write the book, you supported me when I did Our house is a home because of you and I am a lucky man to fi nd you here every time I come home from a trip I see you in the eyes of our children and that brings more joy than I would have ever imagined over twenty years ago when we fi rst met

—Brian Randell

INTRODUCTION xxix

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO APPLICATION LIFECYCLE

PART I: TEAM FOUNDATION SERVER

Accessing Team Foundation Server 26Accessing Team Foundation Server from Visual Studio 27Accessing Team Foundation Server Through a Web Browser 29Using Team Foundation Server in Microsoft Excel 30Using Team Foundation Server in Microsoft Project 31Command-Line Tools for Team Foundation Server 31Accessing Team Foundation Server from Eclipse 31Windows Explorer Integration with Team Foundation Server 32Access to Team Foundation Server via Other Third-Party Integrations 32

CHAPTER 4: DISTRIBUTED VERSION CONTROL

Fundamentals of Distributed Version Control

Getting Started with the Visual Studio Tools for Git 79

Clone 80

Commit 83

Summary 91

Simplifi ed Building and Testing of Windows Store Apps 97

Summary 125

Confi guring for First Use 133

Approvals 149Summary 151

CHAPTER 7: COMMON TEAM FOUNDATION SERVER

CUSTOMIZATIONS 153

Creating Custom Build Workfl ow Activities 159

Summary 163

PART II: BUILDING THE RIGHT SOFTWARE

CHAPTER 8: INTRODUCTION TO BUILDING THE RIGHT SOFTWARE 167

Stakeholders 169 Storyboarding 170

TeamCompanion 173TeamSpec 174inteGREAT 174Summary 176

PART III: PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Project Management Enhancements in

Managing Work Items 223

Summary 232

Summary 255

Summary 274

PART IV: ARCHITECTURE

The Architecture Tools in Visual Studio Ultimate 2013 281

Layer Diagrams 286

What’s New with Architecture Tools in

Visual Studio Visualization and Modeling SDK 288

Summary 288

CHAPTER 15: TOP-DOWN DESIGN WITH USE CASE, ACTIVITY,

Adding an Activity Diagram to a Use Case Diagram 300

Generating Code from a UML Class Diagram 314

Summary 315

CHAPTER 16: ANALYZING APPLICATIONS USING ARCHITECTURE

Understanding the Architecture Explorer Window 320

Navigating Through Architecture Explorer 321

Dependency Graphs 328

Creating a Dependency Graph Without Architecture Explorer 329Navigating Through Your Dependency Graph 331

Summary 341

CHAPTER 17: USING LAYER DIAGRAMS TO MODEL

Adding Multiple Objects to a Layer Diagram 347

Summary 367

CHAPTER 19: UNIT TESTING 369

Initialization and Cleanup of Unit Tests 377

Summary 394

CHAPTER 20: CODE ANALYSIS, CODE METRICS,

What’s New for Code Analysis in Visual Studio 2013 398

Creating Code Analysis Rules 414

Reviewing the Code Clone Analysis Results 418

Excluding Items from Code Clone Analysis 419

Summary 423

What’s New in Profi ling with Visual Studio 2013 427

Confi guring a NET Memory Allocation Session 446Confi guring a Concurrency Profi ling Session 446

Reading and Interpreting Session Reports 450

Collecting Detailed Information 472

Installing the IntelliTrace Standalone Collector 481

Confi guring IntelliTrace PowerShell Commandlets 482

Summary 484

PART VI: TESTING

Supported Technologies for Action Recordings 529

CHAPTER 25: CODED USER INTERFACE TESTING 537

Creating Coded UI Tests Using the Coded UI Test Builder 542

Web Performance Tests versus Coded UI Tests 564

Confi guring Web Performance Test Run Settings 569

Viewing and Interpreting Load Test Results 598

Confi guring Agents 603

Cloud-Based Load Testing with Visual Studio Online 603

Summary 607

Agents 611

Summary 631

INDEX 633

OVER THE LAST 15 YEARS, Microsoft’s software development tooling has matured to address not only the needs of the lone programmer, but the needs of an entire software development team This includes business analysts, project managers, architects, testers, programmers, managers, stakehold-ers, and even operations personnel who deploy and maintain applications This book was written to help teams understand and adopt these tools with the end goal of making them more cohesive and productive, and ultimately to produce higher-quality software on time and on budget.

Whether you already own Visual Studio 2013, or are considering purchasing it, this book will help you evaluate and adopt the right tools for your project This book considers all of the roles that make up a modern software development project The tools and technologies that are relevant to each role are examined in detail, including walk-throughs, which will help you learn and apply each tool within your team

WHO THIS BOOK IS FOR

This book primarily targets teams of professionals in the fi eld of commercial or enterprise software development — in other words, intermediate to advanced users You are likely to fi nd this book use-ful if you are any of the following:

➤ A developer, tester, or architect who wants to learn how the Visual Studio 2013 family of products can help you perform your job

➤ A project manager who must manage a software development project

This book is not designed for the absolute beginner The focus is on practical application of the tools, code samples, and hands-on scenarios The book’s organization makes it easy to use as

a step-by-step guide and as a reference for modeling, designing, testing, and coordinating enterprise solutions at every level

Visual Studio 2013 is designed for software teams of all sizes So, whether you have a team of 5

or 2,000 members, this book includes useful information for you related to Visual Studio 2013 and application lifecycle management Unlike most Wrox books, this book targets all roles in the software development organization — architects, developers, testers, project leads, and manage-ment — not just developers

WHAT THIS BOOK COVERS

This book includes a complete overview of the application lifecycle management capabilities of Visual Studio 2013 The book is divided into six main parts, based around the different aspects

of application lifecycle management:

➤ Part I: Team Foundation Server

➤ Part II: Building the Right Software

➤ Part III: Project Management

➤ Part IV: Architecture

➤ Part V: Software Development

➤ Part VI: Testing

Part I: Team Foundation Server

Because Team Foundation Server is at the heart of Microsoft’s application lifecycle management solution, this book starts with an examination of its capabilities It discusses the architecture of Team Foundation Server 2013, and then delves into the version control system and some best prac-tices surrounding branching and merging using Team Foundation Server There is an in-depth look

at the automated build process — Team Foundation Build — followed by a detailed look at how release management works in Team Foundation Server Finally, you are presented with some exam-ples of common customizations you can make to Team Foundation Server

Part II: Building the Right Software

Microsoft’s application lifecycle management offerings in Visual Studio 2013 have expanded to recognize the role that stakeholders play in the software development process Stakeholders could

be future end users of an application, the decision makers who are authorizing payment for an cation, lawyers who need to approve applications for regulatory requirements, or any number of people external to the development team who have a vested interest in the outcome of a particular development project In this section of the book, you fi nd out about new tools available to engage with stakeholders early and often throughout the development process These tools can lead to higher-quality software that is more likely to meet expectations and deliver continuous value while minimizing the amount of rework required

appli-Part III: Project Management

This section of the book deals with the project and process management functionality of Visual Studio 2013 and Team Foundation Server 2013 This section examines the process templates that ship with the product, and it covers the web-based agile planning and tracking capabilities Part III also discusses the reports that ship with Team Foundation Server Whether you are practicing

a lightweight development methodology such as Scrum, or a more formal, rigorous development

process, you will discover that Team Foundation Server will provide you with the tooling you need

to manage your projects

Part IV: Architecture

This section of the book examines the tools available in Visual Studio 2013 for defi ning and lyzing application architecture After a brief introduction to architecture concepts, the discussion dives into all the new UML tools available, including use case diagrams, activity diagrams, sequence diagrams, class diagrams, and component diagrams You then learn about the Architecture Explorer and how you can use it to understand the architecture of your application Finally, this section wraps up with a discussion of layer diagrams

ana-Part V: Software Development

This section of the book covers topics of most interest to a software developer using Visual Studio

2013 The topics selected for this section of the book pertain most to building either complex applications or working with teams For example, the section explains how unit testing, static code analysis, profi ling, code coverage, and code clone analysis features are ways to improve your appli-cation’s overall quality and maintainability Part V also discusses the built-in code review capability and how you can use it to collaborate with other developers You fi nd out how the ability to suspend and resume work in progress makes it easier to deal with interruptions Finally, this section pro-vides in-depth coverage of debugging applications with IntelliTrace, including a new way of using IntelliTrace for debugging applications in a production environment

Part VI: Testing

Visual Studio 2013 has numerous tools available for testers to use The examination starts with a look at the manual testing functionality available in Microsoft Test Manager, as well as the ability

to automate user interface tests with coded user interface tests Web performance testing and load testing enable you to create tests that can help you ensure that users of your website will experience the best possible performance, even under heavy load You’ll learn about the new cloud-based load testing features The section concludes with a look at the improved lab management capabilities of Visual Studio 2013, which enable you to make use of physical or virtual environments that you can use to automate build-deploy-test workfl ows

TEAM FOUNDATION SERVER ADMINISTRATORS

If you are the person on your team who is responsible for administering your Team Foundation Server

deployment, you should consider purchasing this book as well as its sister book — Professional Team

Foundation Server 2013 by Steven St Jean, Damian Brady, Ed Blankenship, Martin Woodward, and

Grant Holliday (Wrox, 2014 ISBN 978-1-118-83634-7) — which dives deeper into setup, confi ration, and administration of Team Foundation Server 2013 You fi nd out more about the possible deployment topologies you can choose from, how to make changes to process templates, advanced secu-

To help you get the most from the text and keep track of what’s happening, we’ve used a number of conventions throughout the book

WARNING Boxes like this one hold important, not-to-be forgotten information

that is directly relevant to the surrounding text.

NOTE Notes, tips, hints, and tricks are offset and placed in italics like this.

SIDEBAR

Asides to the current discussion are offset like this

As for styles in the text:

➤ We italicize new terms and important words when we introduce them.

➤ We show keyboard strokes like this: Ctrl+A

➤ We show fi le names, URLs, and code within the text like so: persistence.properties

➤ We present code in two different ways:

We use a monofont type with no highlighting for most code examples.

We use boldface to emphasize code that is particularly important in the present context.

SOURCE CODE

As you work through the examples in this book, you may choose either to type in all the code manually, or to use the source code fi les that accompany the book All the source code used in this book is available for download at www.wrox.com/go/proalm3ed You can also search for the book

at www.wrox.com When you’re at the site, simply locate the book’s title (either by using the Search box, or by using one of the title lists) and click the Download Code link on the book’s detail page to obtain all the source code for the book

NOTE Because many books have similar titles, you may fi nd it easiest to search

by ISBN; this book’s ISBN is 978-1-118-83658-3.

Alternatively, you can go to the main Wrox code download page at www.wrox.com/dynamic/books/download.aspx to see the code available for this book and all other Wrox books After you download the code, just decompress it with your favorite compression tool

ERRATA

We make every effort to ensure that there are no errors in the text or in the code However, no one

is perfect, and mistakes do occur If you fi nd an error in one of our books, such as a spelling mistake

or a faulty piece of code, we would be very grateful for your feedback By sending in errata, you may save another reader hours of frustration, and you will be helping us provide even higher quality information

To fi nd the errata page for this book, go to www.wrox.com and locate the title using the Search box

or one of the title lists Then, on the book details page, click the Book Errata link On this page, you can view all errata that has been submitted for this book and posted by Wrox editors

NOTE A complete book list including links to errata is also available at

www.wrox.com/misc-pages/booklist.shtml.

If you don’t spot “your” error on the Book Errata page, go to www.wrox.com/contact

/techsupport.shtml and complete the form to alert us to the error you have found We’ll check the information and, if appropriate, post a message to the book’s errata page and fi x the problem

in subsequent editions of the book

P2P.WROX.COM

For author and peer discussion, join the P2P forums at http://p2p.wrox.com The forums are a web-based system for you to post messages relating to Wrox books and related technologies, and to interact with other readers and technology users The forums offer a subscription feature to email you topics of your choosing when new posts are made to the forums Wrox authors, editors, other industry experts, and your fellow readers are present on these forums

At http://p2p.wrox.com, you can fi nd several forums that will help you not only as you read the book, but also as you develop your own applications To join the forums, just follow these steps:

1. Go to http://p2p.wrox.com and click the Register link

2. Read the terms of use and click Agree

3. Complete the required information to join, as well as any optional information you want to provide, and click Submit

4. You will receive an email message with information describing how to verify your account and complete the joining process

You can read messages in the forums without joining P2P, but in order to post your own messages, you must join

After you join, you can post new messages and respond to messages other users post You can read messages at any time on the web If you would like to have new messages from a particular forum emailed to you, click the Subscribe to this Forum icon by the forum name in the forum listing.For more information about how to use the Wrox P2P, be sure to read the P2P FAQs for answers to questions about how the forum software works, as well as many common questions specifi c to P2P and Wrox books To read the FAQs, click the FAQ link on any P2P page

Introduction to Application

Lifecycle Management with

Visual Studio 2013

WHAT’S IN THIS CHAPTER?

➤ Defi ning application lifecycle management

➤ Learning about the Visual Studio 2013 product family

➤ Seeing ALM in action using Visual Studio Ultimate 2013

In June of 1999, Microsoft started to re-evaluate how Visual Studio was being used as part

of the software development process Microsoft was continuing to serve the needs of an individual programmer through the highly productive “code-focused rapid-application-devel-opment” features of Visual Studio, but wasn’t doing much to help programmers work together

as a team And what about software architects—how should they be working with the gramming team? And what about testers and project managers?

pro-Many teams had begun to set up their own solutions using a mixture of third-party, in-house, and vendor-provided tools to address such challenges as version control, bug tracking, and team communications But this mishmash of tools can be tricky to set up and maintain, and even more diffi cult to integrate and report across Microsoft sought to address this challenge

by providing an integrated set of tools designed to address the needs of the entire software development team Thus, Visual Studio Team System was born, and was fi rst released with the Visual Studio 2005 product line

At the heart of Team System, Team Foundation Server was created to provide a hub for all

members of the development team to collaborate Team Foundation Server is uniquely tioned from its predecessors across the industry by being the fi rst tool of its kind built from

posi-1

been offered as standalone tools Team Foundation Server provides a unifi ed solution for storing source code (along with a history of changes), work item tracking (which can include bugs, require-ments, and so on), and automated builds By providing a single solution with all of these capabilities, Microsoft delivered the ability to link all these artifacts for end-to-end traceability, reporting, pro-cess enforcement, and project management.

Team System also included “client” functionality, which surfaced in the various editions of Visual Studio development tools Visual Studio seamlessly integrated with Team Foundation Server, but much of this tooling could also be used independently or with third-party source control solutions Visual Studio Team System also introduced role-specifi c tooling that lived outside of the core Visual Studio development environment by recognizing that team members such as project managers are oftentimes more comfortable using tools such as Excel or Project, both of which could be used to manage and track work that lived in Team Foundation Server

Team System was built from a foundation of tools and technologies that Microsoft had been using internally for many years to build some of the most complex software projects ever undertaken Team System appealed not only to programmers, but to all members of the development team—architects, application developers, database developers, and project managers

Three years later, Visual Studio Team System 2008 evolved from the previous version to include even more tools and functionality for all members of the project team to use Two years after that, Visual Studio 2010 added even more functionality, including an entirely new set of tools for general-ist testers (also referred to as manual testers), bringing a new audience of prospective users into the same set of tooling used by the rest of the team

APPLICATION LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT

Along with the release of Visual Studio 2010, Microsoft also stopped using the sub-brand “Team System” to describe these capabilities Instead, Microsoft started referring to these tools as the

application lifecycle management (also referred to as ALM) capabilities of Visual Studio

Application lifecycle management is a term that has gained momentum in the development industry

to describe the way an application is managed from its conception, through its creation and ment, to its eventual retirement

deploy-It is important to note that application lifecycle management is a more comprehensive concept than

its popular predecessor, software development lifecycle (SDLC) SDLC is primarily focused on the

core coding activities that comprise the creation of an application’s life, beginning with a ment for an application and ending when that application is built and delivered Application lifecycle management recognizes that requirements aren’t simply born out of thin air They evolve based on business needs, or ideas for new opportunities, and stakeholders who are considered external to the development team may still play a role during the development of an application in helping to refi ne requirements and provide feedback on implementations Application lifecycle management also recognizes that a development team’s job isn’t done the moment they hand off a “fi nished” applica-tion The development team will likely be called upon to help troubleshoot the application when things go wrong in the deployed environment, or to create subsequent versions of the applica-tion based on feedback from users or analytics from the operations team Visual Studio itself has

require-matured over time to grow from being a tool targeted squarely at programmers during the software development lifecycle to becoming a true solution for end-to-end application lifecycle management.

VISUAL STUDIO 2013 PRODUCT LINEUP

Table 1-1 outlines the product lineup for Visual Studio 2013

TABLE 1-1: Visual Studio 2013 Product Lineup

Microsoft Visual Studio

Ultimate 2013 with

MSDN

The comprehensive suite of application lifecycle management tools for software teams to help ensure quality results from design to deployment

Microsoft Visual Studio

Microsoft Visual Studio

Express 2013 for Web

A free version of Visual Studio 2013 that provides the core tools for creating web applications and services

Microsoft Visual Studio

Microsoft Visual Studio

Team Foundation Server

2013

The server component for team development, version control, work item tracking, build automation, project management, lab manage-ment, and reporting

Microsoft Visual Studio

Team Foundation Server

Express 2013

A free edition of Team Foundation Server that provides most of the same capabilities (including version control, work item tracking, and build automation), with some limitations, for a team of up to fi ve users

Visual Studio Premium contains all the functionality of Visual Studio Professional, and Visual Studio Ultimate contains all the functionality of Visual Studio Premium Visual Studio Premium and Ultimate also include all of the functionality available in Visual Studio Test Professional.

There are a few additional standalone tools and technologies that comprise the Visual Studio 2013 family that are not listed For example, in Chapter 10 you learn about the new Microsoft Feedback Client, which stakeholders use to provide rich feedback about an application that is stored in Team Foundation Server In Chapter 3, you learn about Team Explorer Everywhere, which Eclipse devel-opers use to work with Team Foundation Server You learn about these additional tools throughout this book, but Table 1-1 showcases the primary products that Microsoft markets as part of the Visual Studio 2013 product family

For a detailed breakdown of the functionality available in each product, a comparison chart is able at www.visualstudio.com

avail-NOTE Software licensing is potentially a complex topic It is important to

ensure that the members of your team are adequately licensed to use Visual

Studio and the related technologies that make up your development and testing

environments The Visual Studio Licensing whitepaper attempts to synthesize

all of the licensing requirements for Visual Studio, Team Foundation Server, and

related technologies into an easy-to-read format You can fi nd the latest

ver-sion of the Visual Studio Licensing whitepaper at http://www.microsoft.com/

visualstudio/licensing.

APPLICATION LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES

Software developers share common challenges, regardless of the size of their teams Businesses require a high degree of accountability—software must be developed in the least amount of time, and there is no room for failure

Some of these challenges include the following:

➤ Tool integration problems—Most tools commonly used by software development teams

come from third-party vendors Integrating with those tools can pose a major challenge—in many cases, it requires duplicating or copying data into multiple systems Each application has a learning curve, and transmitting information from one application to another (incom-patible) application can be frustrating and time consuming

➤ Geographically distributed teams—Many development and management tools don’t scale

for geographically distributed teams Getting accurate reporting can be diffi cult, and there is often poor support for communication and collaborative tools As a result, requirements and specifi cations might be captured incorrectly, causing delays and introducing errors Global teams require solid design, process, and software confi guration management to be integrated into one package There aren’t many software packages that can deliver all these features,