Shai Raiten's Blog : Lab Management

TFS API Part 42 – Getting Started With Lab Management API

shair — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 17:12:00 GMT

I did some cool things lately with TFS Lab Management API, from connecting it to TFS Web Access and allow REST access to the lab (if you want to ask why – The customer is always right ).

So this part of TFS API will deal with Lab Management API, although Lab Management API is not public I’ll show some cool things you can do but this will be under your own risk.

Again, this is just the beginning of the Lab Management API, so let’s get started

Download Demo Project

Step 1: Located “Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Lab.Client.dll”

This dll cannot be found under Public, Private or ReferenceAssemblies it can only be found under GAC, so navigate here - C:\Windows\assembly\GAC_MSIL\Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Lab.Client\10.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a\
Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Lab.Client.dll

Add this dll as reference to your project.

Step 2: Connect TFS and Obtain LabService

After connecting to TFS you need to obtain the Lab Service at the same way we did for all other services under TFS.

If created a combo box with all team project for later use.

private void BtnConnectClick(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
   var tpp = new TeamProjectPicker(TeamProjectPickerMode.NoProject,false);
   tpp.ShowDialog();
 
   if (tpp.SelectedTeamProjectCollection == null) return;
   _tfs = tpp.SelectedTeamProjectCollection;
   _lab = (LabService)_tfs.GetService(typeof(LabService));
  
   var store = (WorkItemStore)_tfs.GetService<WorkItemStore>();
   listProjects.ItemsSource = store.Projects;
}

Step 3: Get Collection Hosts and Library Share

Before we start dealing with Team Projects and their Lab Vm’s and templates the below code will show how to pull the Lab Management Hosts and Library Share from the TFS Collection.

Using the Lab Service and a QuerySpec object (we’ll use those a lot), we need to call QueryTeamProjectCollectionHostGroups method (right now we don’t need to add anything to the Query).

//public class TeamProjectCollectionHostGroupQuerySpec
//{
//  public TeamProjectCollectionHostGroupQuerySpec();
//  public Uri Location { get; set; }
//  public string Name { get; set; }
//}
listHostGroups.ItemsSource = _lab.QueryTeamProjectCollectionHostGroups(
    new TeamProjectCollectionHostGroupQuerySpec());
 
//public class TeamProjectCollectionLibraryShareQuerySpec
//{
//  public TeamProjectCollectionLibraryShareQuerySpec();
//  public Uri Location { get; set; }
//  public string Name { get; set; }
//}
listLibraryShares.ItemsSource = _lab.
          QueryTeamProjectCollectionLibraryShares(
     new TeamProjectCollectionLibraryShareQuerySpec());

Step 4: Get Lab Management Details For Team Project

Now, when you choose a Team Project we’ll call the GetProjectLabDetails method to extract all relevant lab information on that project.

But first we’ll use the LabService.IsLabConfigured method to see if this project has any lab configurations, if it does then using the QuerySpec we can pull all Environments and Templates for that team project.

void GetProjectLabDetails(string projectName)
{
    //Does this Team Project has Lab configure?
    if (!_lab.IsLabConfigured(projectName)) return;
 
    //Creating Query for lab environments under a specific project name.
    var labQuerySpec = new LabEnvironmentQuerySpec{Project = projectName};
    //public class LabEnvironmentQuerySpec
    //{
    //  public LabEnvironmentQuerySpec();
    //  public LabEnvironmentDisposition Disposition { get; set; }
    //  public Uri Location { get; set; }
    //  public string Project { get; set; }
    //}
 
    listEnvironments.ItemsSource =_lab.QueryLabEnvironments(labQuerySpec);
    listTemplates.ItemsSource = _lab.QueryLabTemplates(new 
    LabTemplateQuerySpec() { Project = projectName });
}

Download Demo Project

Enjoy.

Microsoft Open Day–Testing in Visual Studio 2010

shair — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 22:12:00 GMT

Microsoft Open Day–Testing in Visual Studio 2010

Two days a ago I had the honor to give 4 hours lecture on Testing using Visual Studio 2010 in Microsoft Israel for more than 100 people about the entire suite for Testers in Visual Studio 2010,

This wasn’t just another overview session but hand zone session on each subject:

Microsoft Test Manager – Read More
Lab Management– Read More
Unit Tests – Read More
Web Tests -Read More
Load Test – Read More
Coded UI Test – Read More

You can download the presentation from Here

I hope you had fun and learn about the testing suite coming with Visual Studio 2010, for any questions please feel free to contact me.

Thanks for all participants!

VS 2010 SP1 Beta – Test and Lab Improvements

shair — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 14:28:46 GMT

VS 2010 SP1 Beta – Test and Lab Improvements

On my previous posts I’ve talked about VS/TFS 2010 SP1 Beta has Released, now available for everyone and not just MSDN Subscribers.

Service Pack 1 Beta - General availability download
Service Pack 1 Beta – MS DN Subscribers only download

In the last post I wrote about about Improvements comes with SP1 Beta for VS/TFS 2010 , but not all… from the Testers side there were also a lot improvements and here is some of them:

For the full article read Amit Chatterjee's

Microsoft Test Manager

Support for Expression Encoder 4.0 in Manual testing
Fixes we released as part of hotfix for Microsoft Test Manager
‘Configure Diagnostic Data Adapter-Event Log’ page is truncated in localized version of Microsoft Test Manager
Analyzing test result causes it to become most recent result in the test point trend
Remember Right-To-Left language settings across MTM sessions
Query-based test suite repopulation takes too long for large suites
Microsoft Test Runner : Crash after choosing browser type for FireFox playback
Unable to collect Intellitrace data if application under test is launched as a part of action recording for the test case
Parameterization: Can't bind parameter to password field when creating Action Recording
Microsoft Test Runner: Show test case description in MTR
API: Attachment count for test results returns 0 when iterating through large amount of test results
Performance improvements for Microsoft Test Manager

FastForward/CodedUITest

Fixes we released as part rollup hotfix
Coded UI Test Project is incompatible with Setup/Deploy projects in the same solution
UI Test Controls added to UIMap are case-insensitive
Creating Coded UI Test from existing action recording does not show up alternate credentials dialog
BrowserWindow.FindMatchingControls() throws UITestException

Visual Studio 2010 Lab Management Release Version

shair — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 12:17:01 GMT

Visual Studio 2010 Lab Management Release Version

I’ve heard this question a lot –> Release Version??? I’m already using Visual Studio 2010 Lab Management… You are using the Lab Management “Release Candidate” version…
When Microsoft release Visual Studio they define Lab Management capability to be “Release Candidate” quality rather then “Released” quality because didn’t got enough customer feedback to feel really confident that it was 100% ready for prime time.

Microsoft announced that Lab Management will not be sold as a separate product, but instead will be available to Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN and Visual Studio Test Professional with MSDN subscribers.
In addition, Microsoft will announce the general availability of Lab Management as “end of August.”

What is Lab Manager: (Read More)

Microsoft’s Visual Studio Lab Management solution extends the existing Visual Studio Application Lifecycle Management platform to enable integrated Hyper-V based virtual machine management. Lab Management automates complex build-deploy-test workflows to optimize the build process, decrease risk and accelerate your time to market. Organizations can reduce development and testing costs associated with setup, tear down and restoration of virtual environments to a known state. Lab Management streamlines the collaboration between development, QA and operations to help organizations achieve a higher ROI and realize the benefits of Microsoft’s entire ALM solution. Lab Management enables testers to file rich bugs with links to environment snapshots, which enable developers to quickly debug complex environments.

If you want to try out Lab Management scenarios, you can download a preconfigured VHD which has all lab management components installed and configured from http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=195885

Lab Management Home Page - http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/solutions/software-quality/lab-management

Microsoft Key Note At SIGIST 2010 - Test Automation - Done

shair — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 23:24:00 GMT

Microsoft Key Note At SIGIST 2010 - Test Automation – Done

Today I had the honor to participate at SIGIST 2010 conference (The third year) and be a part of Microsoft Key Note on Test Automation in Visual Studio

2010 and Microsoft Test Manager. (Last year lecture - Sigist 2009 – Lab Management & Pictures)

I’ve showed couple of cool demos using “Fast-Forward for Manual Testing”, Rich Bugs using Data Collectors and Lab Manager solution.

And I showed a short demo on how to use Eclipse IDE with TFS 2010 using Team Explorer Everywhere (Heterogeneous).

I got great feedbacks from people attending and I’ll would like to thank you all and hope to see you next year!

Visual Studio 2010 – What Version Is For Me?

shair — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 15:29:00 GMT

Visual Studio 2010 – What Version Is For Me?

As you know Visual Studio 2010 Is Released and Available for Download on MSDN.

If you look at your MSDN download section you’ll notice there couple of versions available for download,

In Visual Studio Team System 2005/2008 we had Testing version, Developer (DB) version Architecture version and Suite that contains all.

Visual Studio 2010 comes with 4 editions with more global names (not Tester or Developer):


Test Professional	Professional	Premium	Ultimate

On my previous posts I talked about Visual Studio 2010 Licensing and Upgrades (See Links).
The Ultimate Offer – TFS For Everyone | TFS 2010 Server Licensing

I Don’t Know Which Version Is Enough For Me?

So Let’s find the right version for you!

Developer & DB Professional

If all you need is Visual Studio for Code and Unit Test you need –> Professional edition
Want to manage your DB using Source Control –> Premium
Writing Code and using Profiler to find performance problem inside your code – > Premium

For other cool and important features please look and the table below.

Features	Premium	Ultimate
IntelliTrace (Historical Debugger)		X
Code Metrics	X	X
Profiling	X	X
Static Code Analysis	X	X
Database Deployment	X	X
Database Change Management	X	X
Database Unit Testing	X	X
Database Test Data Generation	X	X

Tester:

As a manual tester without any need of automation of any kind you need –> Test Professional.
As Automation Tester writing CodedUI tests without Web Test and Load Test you need –> Premium
For Load Testing and Web Testing you need –> Ultimate
As Manual and Automation Tester you need – > Ultimate
Using Lab Manager(Hyper-V \ VmWare) – > Test Professional \ Ultimate

Features	Premium	Ultimate	Test Professional
Code Coverage	X	X
Test Impact Analysis	X	X
Coded UI Test	X	X
Web Performance Testing		X
Load Testing		X
Microsoft Test Manager 2010		X	X
Lab Management		X	X

Architecture:

This one is very simple – Only Ultimate will give the you the ability to work with the new Architecture features.

Premium will only allow you to View diagrams without changing them.

Features	Premium	Ultimate
Architecture Explorer		X
UML^® 2.0 Compliant Diagrams (Activity, Use Case, Sequence, Class, Component)		X
Layer Diagram and Dependency Validation		X
Read-only diagrams (UML, Layer, DGML Graphs)	X

For Any question please feel free to contact me!

Enjoy.

Sigist 2009 – Lab Management & Pictures

shair — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 16:43:00 GMT

Sigist 2009 – Lab Management & Pictures

In the last post about Sigist 2009 – The Rise Of QA (Microsoft Test & Lab Manager) I post couple of links about Microsoft Test & Lab Manager, in this post you can see the pictures from the conference the presentation and more info about Lab Manager. – Thanks Shay.

Sigist 2009 Presentation – Download Now

Lab Management Blog - http://blogs.msdn.com/lab_management/

Video: http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/VisualStudio/Lab-Management-coming-to-Visual-Studio-Team-System-2010/

Sigist 2009 – The Rise Of QA (Microsoft Test & Lab Manager)

shair — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 02:29:00 GMT

Sigist 2009 – The Rise Of QA (Microsoft Test & Lab Manager)

Today I had the honor to present Microsoft Keynote in Sigist 2009 conference, the new and powerful tester tool in Visual Studio Team System 2010 "Microsoft Test & Lab Manager"

SIGiST Israel was founded in June 2000, by Mr. Alon Linetzki, and was self sponsored, for the first few meetings. Today, after many meetings, out of which several were sponsored by RadView, Rational (IBM) and Mercury (HP-Software), SIGiST Israel is the most reorganized testing community in the Israeli market. The SIGiST board today includes also Mr. Yan Baron, Automation Manager, Comverse, and Mrs. Debi Zylbermann, senior consultant in software quality assurance and website promotion.

I talked about the new improvements in "Microsoft Test & Lab Manager" – Manual Testing & Automated Testing, Shay Mandel the PM of Lab manager from India gave a wonderful lecture about Lab Manager Virtualization Solution.

After the lecture so many people came to ask questions about the tool, express their enthusiasm of the new features and abilities and everyone toke DVDs with Visual Studio Team System 2010 & Team Foundation Server 2010 – There is no doubt the QA group loves this tool.