One of the components of Visual Studio Team System 2010 is Lab Management. We first talked about this at the most recent PDC and we have seen quite a bit of excitement from our customers on this.
It is obvious that developers and testers are faced with ever-increasing complexity in the applications they build and test. This is true both for what we do at Microsoft and for everybody else out in the world doing software development.
As part of building VSTS 2010, we wanted to build the right tools that enable you to build the highest quality application. The gap we found and addressed, was the speed and scale of the Develop – Build – Deploy – Test cycle and its use of technology like virtualization. Our investment in Lab Management was specifically to address this gap.
Developers are frustrated with too much bug “ping/pong” with their test counterparts and have a lack of access to distributed environments. Testers don’t get the right tools and right attention and after spending 30-50% of their test cycle time on test setup most of their bugs get resolved with a “not reproducible” resolution.
To address those challenges we set out some basic principles – a) environment set up should take minutes and not weeks, b) walls between developers and testers need to come down, c) build automation extends to environment provisioning, build deployment and testing, d) eliminate bug “ping/pong”.
Lab Management uses virtualization technology and deep integration with our overall Application Lifecycle Management model and System Center Virtual Machine Manager to deliver on these principles. It is built specifically to accelerate setup/tear down/restore of complex virtual environments to a clean state. We solve the no-repro problem by allowing testers to file rich bugs with links to environment checkpoints that developers use to recreate bugs in complex environments. With one click of a button the developer can launch a virtual environment that exactly matches the one in which the bug was found. Finally, we extend build automation dramatically by automating virtual machine provisioning, build deployment and build verification in an integrated fashion. We believe this approach will enable teams to embrace change and be more agile in an ever demanding world.
Here is a more detailed example of how this can work for you.
When a tester is testing against a virtual environment and finds a bug, with a single click they can take a checkpoint of the entire environment (multiple VM’s) where they are testing. A link to the check point, which is just a few bytes, is automatically attached to the bug along with additional rich information such as a time indexed video, action log, historical debugging log and more based on how configurable options the tester selects.
A developer, upon getting an alert on a new bug, can open that bug from the IDE and find all the rich information along with the check point link included in the bug. For the first time, the developer will not need to ask the tester what he/she was doing or spent long hours trying to recreate the environment. They can simply double click on the link to the environment and a light weight lab environment viewer opens the entire environment with multiple VMs and allows the developer to restore the state of the environment with a click. The developer now has the an environment to use for debugging using historical debugging tools like we have coming in VSTS 2010 that helps them to rewind in code and find out the sequence of events or program flow that lead to the bug.
As you can imagine, Lab Management will significantly improve the developer-tester workflow and will help the development effort be a lot more productive and effective.
Namaste!
I searched a bit on the VS2010 PDC VPC but couldn't find this... When will we be able to test that powerful feature ? :)
Soma,
Didn't you read the comments on your previous blog from all the satisfied VS C++ developers... What part of those comments did you fail to understand?
Soma we are not frustrated with too much bug “ping/pong” in our applications! We are frustrated with Visual Studio and the .BLOAT framework and having to play "ping/pong" with Microsoft over this lousy VS development environment! We are frustrated with BLOATED development tools that still lack a true N-TIER data centric language.
Soma, as it turns out we had the right tools in 6.0 and Microsoft issued an end of life for that product line. Visual Studio and .BLOAT is far from the "right" tool for most non-enterprise based customers and in most cases is a step in the wrong direction.
Please don't insult us by trying to spin internal development tools you need at Microsoft to get a handle on "your " development efforts as community driven requests.
From Microsoft's perspective as long at the flashy WPF UI is half implemented to create some really cool powerpoint presentation for the VS cheerleaders that speak at devcon to woo newbie developers that is all that matters... I see symbolism or substance is still alive and well at Microsoft!
In my last post I had mentioned about the Lab Management Product and also pointed you to a channel 9
The Lab Management team has a blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/lab_management
Where you can read more about the product and keep updated.
The VSTS CTP did not include the Lab Management piece, which was release a few weeks later to selected customers. If you want to evaluate Lab before the official Beta, visit the blog and send a mail to the team.
I think this feature will lead to some significant quality and productivity increases in team environments. Nice!
Very interesting stuff, looking forward to VSTS 2010. Have emailed the VSTS team for the CTP(with Lab Management) details.
Publicación del inglés original : Viernes, 12 de diciembre de 2008 5:30 PM PST por Somasegar Uno de los
You testers tired of continually setting up your test only to find have bug that can't be reproduced?
Good to see you got rid of the adverts, which for me just cheapened your site adnd watered down your message. Re-subscribed!
Greate! I think our testers and developers will be happy! Looking forward to VSTS 2010
Soma writes about some of the exciting capabilities coming in VSTS 2010, particularly in regards to the
I am a developer and I am sure this is going to save a lot of time in reproducing the defect, as I will not have to wait on the tester to reproduce a defect at my side. It would be nice if some way we can attach process to the debug the scenario. I hope Microsoft moves in that direction.
This could be a very helpful tool for developers and testers. Would like to try this out.
Gordon, what are you trying to prove by living in the past and comparing a primitive and ancient 6.0 version with latest Visual Studio? Which non-enterprise customers are you talking about? I am a non-enterprise customer and I am happy with the latest Visual Studio and its amazing features. Btw, have you heard of the express editions of visual studio?
@JOHN... Express is limited to 5 users, the applications I develop exceed that limit. If you are not building an enterprise based solution then you are probably not working in a large team environment therefore your excitement about this tool appears to be unfounded and amounts to nothing more then cheerleading.
I’m so tired of people saying Visual Studio is the greatest latest technology it is not funny. Much of the core of .NET is based upon legacy code that has been around forever. EDM is M$FT’S version of an ORM and MVC has already been accomplished in ruby so innovation is nonexistent.
WPF would be worthwhile to implement on the web but it fails there as well given the client must have the .BLOAT framework installed. The funny part is XAML and VFP meta data approach (SCX and VCX files) behind the scenes have a lot more in common then people think the big difference the model worked in VFP for developers and in WPF once again Microsoft is trying to reinvent the wheel and calling it new and developers are buying it.
Having said that considering the pathetic class browser in VS , lack of a “solid” data access strategy and data centric language, I rather live in a “TRUE” RAD productive environment such as VFP / VB then “play” in MSFT most recently released DEV tools and be forced to write more code and technically speaking implement what amounts to true “legacy” code (.NET) which in typical Microsoft fashion has been spun and dressed up to complete their smoke and mirrors development process.
Given the cheerleader thought process is no wonder why Microsoft can get away with this nonsense. Soma probably sits in his office amazed and laughing with what he can get away with. You all are nothing more then his puppets!
@Mark: Could you explain where did you saw or where says that the Express versions of Visual Studio are limited for 5 users? And btw, I think you are missing a really fundamental point on .NET. If you are going to develop a real-time or mission critical app you definately use C++. If you are building a business app or anything else you could use C++, .NET, Java or anything that can get things done. And thats the point, use the big guns for the big job.
The last point you said that you prefer a RAD like VFP or VB I think you dont have the correct aproach on that neither. With VB or VFP is true you can build an app in seconds, but, does it scale? can you call it Enterprise-grade or Business-grade app? I come from VB and the only time I developed that kind of apps where in highschool because a real bussiness app doesn't rely on ADO Data Control or DataConnection or whatever wizard-driven-development-tool produces.