We are happy to announce our latest white papers on Software Factory implementation. There is a small mini-series on the MSDN Architecture Center called "Packaging & Building Software Factories". There are two parts to the series:

• Part 1 - Packaging with Visual Studio 2005
  • Discusses how to package the various software factory project types (VSX, GAT and DSL) into a single combined MSI installer, that can be used to deploy a whole software factory solution, (either using a standard VS setup project or WIX Setup projects)
• Part 2 - Automated Builds with Team Foundation Server
  • Discusses how to implement TFS Team Builds that build software factory project types (VSX, GAT and DSL) solutions in team build scenarios.

If you are building factory solutions today with Visual Studio 2005 and are blocked with packaging and/or with team build scenarios with Team Foundation Server, we hope these papers provide the details to help you develop and deliver your solutions.

Both these papers are accompanied with sample reference implementations to get started with. Just download the code, and modify.

We also support the second part of the series with a CodePlex project (codeplex.com/SFTeamBuild) for adding new MSBUILD tasks and check-in policies for factory project build automation.

I want to say a very special thanks to my coauthors Edward Bakker and Rene Schrieken at LogicaCMG in the Netherlands, and especially to Mark Nichols, and David Scruggs of Microsoft Consulting Services for their invaluable contributions, and also to Attila Hajdrik, Gareth Jones and Pablo Galliano for their valuable feedback and input to the papers.