[UPDATE(7/1/10)] This VHD expires on 30th June 2010, click here for the updated version.
Visual Studio Lab Management 2010 enables teams to accelerate setup/tear down and restoration of complex virtual environments to a known state for test execution and build automation. It extends build automation by automating virtual machine provisioning, build deployment and build verification in an integrated manner. It also allows testers to file rich bugs with links to environment snapshots that developers can use to recreate complex environments; effectively reducing wasted time and resources in your development and test lifecycle.
To enable quick evaluation of the Lab Management 2010 RC, we have created a Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V based Virtual Machine (VM) that provides an all-in-one setup with pre-configured System Center Virtual Machine Manager, Visual Studio, Team Foundation Server with Lab Management enabled. You can download this pre-configured VM from here.
This document consists of the following sections:
In order to use the Lab Management features, a physical Hyper-V host should be available. The Hyper-V host is used to run both the downloaded VM and the virtual environments.
Machine
Type
Details
Physical Hyper-V Host
Physical
Hyper-V Host for hosting Virtual Machines listed below
LabServer (the VM you downloaded)
Virtual
Machine name: labserver.labdomain.local
IBuySpyVM
Virtual Template
A Windows Server 2008 R2 based Stored Virtual Machine template (LabServer VM)
IBuySpy Environment
Application and Database tier for IBuySpy Application
Shown below is the diagram once the LabServer VM and the Hyper-V host are configured.
The setup is divided into the following sections
While 8 GB is the recommended configuration, you can still work with 4 GB RAM host at reduced performance.
Troubleshooting tips
This completes the Lab setup and configuration. The subsequent sections help you to exercise various Lab Management scenarios.
Once you have configured the LabServer VM and the host as above, you can perform the following scenarios. These exercises are designed to enable a quick introduction to deploying a Virtual Environment, running an end to end workflow (build-deploy-test) and creating a rich bug with environment snapshot.
For these scenario walkthroughs, we are using a sample web application called IBuySpy, which is an online storefront for selling spying gadgets. The company has decided to adopt virtualization to consolidate its hardware footprint and increase its utilization. The company decides to adopt Visual Studio 2010 Lab Management as it offers an out of the box integrated solution to leverage all the benefits of virtualization for application lifecycle management (ALM). Using Lab Management, IBuySpy is able to accelerate their software release cycle and also improve the overall quality as
Following artifacts have already been created to carry out the scenario walkthroughs
(Estimated Time: 30 minutes)
In this exercise, the Test Lead uses Microsoft Test Manager to deploy a virtual environment that will be later used for nightly build verification.
Visual Studio 2010 enables you to automate your whole build-deploy-test cycle using Lab Management, build and testing tools. This helps you to address some of the following key pain points with build-deploy-test cycles
As part of this walkthrough you will experience how Visual Studio 2010 helps you to overcome the above challenges by running an end to end Workflow that builds the application, deploys the application on the Clean state of virtual environment and runs Coded UI Tests.
Visual Studio 2010enables testers to file rich bugs that help developer to debug the issue without wasting time in bug ping pong between developer/tester (e.g. developer claiming that a bug does not reproduce on his/her machine and wants more details e.g. system info, event logs etc.)
As part of this walkthrough you will experience how Visual Studio 2010 enables filing of rich bugs with automatic collections with each bug. Also with a bug you can create a Snapshot of the whole environment which can be used by developer to debug the issue. With Snapshot developer gets the whole environment in exactly the same state where the bug was filed.
As a tester you have a created a rich bug. Now let’s see how developer can easily reach the state of the environment where the bug was filed.
The evaluation period for this virtual machine image is 180 days; once the evaluation period terminates, the image should be discarded. NO EFFORT SHOULD BE MADE TO ACTIVATE THIS IMAGE after that date. Please read the following to get an idea of the risks and key things you need to know.
Guidelines on usage:
For complete use-rights, please refer to the EULA contained within this evaluation package.
You can follow the same approach for activating the VM’s which are part of virtual environment (disabling DHCP is not required). Connect to the environment and Click System Info in the environment viewer. Note down the “SCVMM VM Name” and shutdown the environment. Using Hyper-V Manager, temporarily add an external network adapter for this virtual machine. Follow the steps similar to 7-12 mentioned in the above section to activate the image, and later remove the external adapter.