Syed's Blog

How To: Parameterize web servers in webtest

Syed Aslam basha — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 15:47:18 GMT

This is Syed Aslam Basha here from Products and Services IT (PSIT) team.

Parameterizing web servers helps in parameterizing URLs of web server in web test. We can use the same web tests for different environments without need to regenerate the code.

Let me show how to parameterize web servers:

Open the web test
Click on parameterize web servers button
Parameterize webservers screen shown
Click on change
Enter context parameter name and web server to be used
Context parameters will be added and URLs will be replaced with the parameter name
Update the context parameter to required URL

- Syed Aslam Basha (syedab@microsoft.com)

Products and Services IT (PSIT) Team

Test Lead

How To: Use Xperf

Syed Aslam basha — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 06:01:00 GMT

This is Syed Aslam Basha here from Relationship experience division (RXD) team.

You can use Xperf tool to capture trace and narrow down exact processes/operation which is causing performance issue like CPU usage, disk utilization by process, File I/O Types, processes usage and etc.

Example: To trace disk IO and CPU usage run the following trace command

E:\xperf>Xperf.exe -START -on FileIO+CSWITCH+DISK_IO_INIT+PROFILE+FILENAME+DRIVERS+NETWORKTRACE+DPC+INTERRUPT+Latency -stackwalk CSwitch+DiskReadInit+DiskWriteInit+DiskFlushInit+FileCreate+FileCleanup+FileClose+FileRead+FileWrite+FileFlush+profile -f E:\xperfresults\GSdiskio.etl -BufferSize 1024 -MaxBuffers 1024 -MaxFile 1024 -FileMode Circular

Run the performance scripts.

Stop tracing.

E:\xperf>xperf -stop

GSdiskio.etl is the trace file name open the trace file using xperfview.exe and analyze the results.

For more information refer the http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/performance/cc709422

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/performance/cc825801.aspx

- Syed Aslam Basha (syedab@microsoft.com)

Relationship experience division (RXD) Team

Test Lead

Please leave a comment if the blog post has helped you.

How To: Use CUITe

Syed Aslam basha — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 09:33:00 GMT

This is Syed Aslam Basha here from Relationship experience division (RXD) team.

CUITe is coded UI test enhanced framework available at http://cuite.codeplex.com/ useful for test UI automation. The advantages of CUITe is reduced code, better readability and maintainability. Let me show how to use CUITe.

Download and install from http://cuite.codeplex.com/
Launch CUITe_ObjectRecorder
Enter website address to test
Click on record
Click on the controls in web page
Click on Code button in the toolbar
It will generate the code as shown below
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UITesting;
using CUITe.Controls.HtmlControls;

namespace $ProjectNameSpace.$ObjectRepository
{

       public class LoginWindow : CUITe_BrowserWindow
    {
        public new string sWindowTitle = "Server Login";
        public CUITe_HtmlEdit txtusername = new CUITe_HtmlEdit("Id=username");
        public CUITe_HtmlPassword txtpassword = new CUITe_HtmlPassword("Id=password");
        public CUITe_HtmlInputButton btnLogIn = new CUITe_HtmlInputButton("Value=Log In");

    }
}
Create test project.
Record a normal Coded UI test to get all references done automatically.
Add reference to “CUITe.dll” from the install path. Do not copy and reference.
Create objectrepository folder
Add a class file and rename it to LoginWindow
Copy paste the above code in a LoginWindow.cs file which will act as object repository. Update the name space and class name appropriately.
Can have inheritance work for object repository classes (move common stuff to parent classes for better organization and modularity).
In test methods you can call the objects as

LoginWindow.txtusername.SetText(username);

LoginWindow.txtpassword .SetText(password);

LoginWindow.btnLogIn .Click();

Note:

1. Object recorder now only works for html/web.

2. Object recorder only records the object/control definitions, not actions.

For more information refer the site http://cuite.codeplex.com/

- Syed Aslam Basha (syedab@microsoft.com)

Relationship experience division (RXD) Team

Test Lead

Please leave a comment if the blog post has helped you.

How To: Create a new file of a specific size

Syed Aslam basha — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 09:32:18 GMT

This is Syed Aslam Basha here from Relationship experience division (RXD) team.

For one of my application testing I required files of specific different size starting from 1 MB to 1.5 TB. Using fsutil you can easily create a new file of a specific size as shown below:

Syntax:

fsutil file createnew <path with name of file> <size in bytes>

For example the command to create one GB file is:

fsutil file createnew d:\OneGB.txt 1073741824

- Syed Aslam Basha (syedab@microsoft.com)

Relationship experience division (RXD) Team

Test Lead

---------------------------------------------------------

Please leave a comment if the blog post has helped you.

Web Test recorder not shown in Internet explorer when recording web performance test

Syed Aslam basha — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 07:27:47 GMT

This is Syed Aslam Basha here from Relationship experience division (RXD) team.

When using Web performance tests it might not show web test recorder in Internet explorer (IE) meaning the web test recorder add-on is disabled. If web test recorder is not visible in IE you need to enable “Web Test recorder 10.0” add on as:

Launch IE
Click on tools or Press Alt + X and click on Manage add-ons
Navigate to and select web test recorder 10.0 and click on enable
Now you should be able to see web test recorder window in IE

- Syed Aslam Basha (syedab@microsoft.com)

Relationship experience division (RXD) Team

Test Lead

---------------------------------------------------------

Please leave a comment if the blog post has helped you.

How To: Enable tracing for UI Test components using config settings

Syed Aslam basha — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 05:35:32 GMT

This is Syed Aslam Basha here from Relationship experience division (RXD) team.

You can enable tracing for the following components using the respective config files

mtlm.exe.config – For MTLM features
CodedUITestBuilder.exe.config – For coded UI test builder
QTAgent32.exe.config – For coded UI test

The config files are located at “%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE”

Update EqtTraceLevel or UITestTraceLevel in corresponding files as

1 - indicates Errors only
2 - indicates Errors and Warnings
3 - indicates Errors, Warnings and Information
4 - indicates All including Verbose Information

EqtTraceLevel is for all testing tools modules of the executable

UITestTraceLevel is for UI test modules of the executable

- Syed Aslam Basha (syedab@microsoft.com)

Relationship experience division (RXD) Team

Test Lead

---------------------------------------------------------

Please leave a comment if the blog post has helped you.

How to: Enable Tracing for CUIT using registry setting

Syed Aslam basha — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 06:17:00 GMT

This is Syed Aslam Basha here from Relationship experience division (RXD) team.

Trace logs helps in debugging and identifying issues better. We can enable trace logs for coded UI tests as:

Launch regedit and navigate to [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\EnterpriseTools\QualityTools\Diagnostics]
Check the key values for

"EnableTracing"=dword:00000001
"TraceLevel"=dword:00000004

“1” indicates tracing is on “0” indicates tracing is off
Trace level

1 indicates Errors only
2 indicates Errors and Warnings
3 indicates Errors, Warnings and Information
4 indicates All including Verbose Information

If you don’t find the key download and run the EnableTraceLogs registry file. It enables tracing for all VS testing tools.
To disable tracing set EnableTracing to 0

The trace files are generated in %temp%\UITestLogs\LastRun\UITestLog.html. The LastRun contains the latest/last run details. The previous run details are stored as PreviousRunXX.

- Syed Aslam Basha (syedab@microsoft.com)

Relationship experience division (RXD) Team

Test Lead

---------------------------------------------------------

Please leave a comment if the blog post has helped you.

Test Impact Analysis

Syed Aslam basha — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 10:27:00 GMT

This is Syed Aslam Basha here from Relationship experience division (RXD) team.

Test impact analysis helps developers to quickly identify the tests(unit/CUIT) that need to be run for the latest code change. It’s one of the features in visual studio 2010 (VS) available in Premium and Ultimate editions. It works with only managed code.

Let me show Test impact analysis with a Sample web application which has a web page and a class along with Test project.

Launch visual studio 2010
Click on new project ->Visual C# - Test – Test Project ( make sure you have selected .NET Framework4 to see the test project)
Give appropriate project name and save the project
Close VS
Launch VS 2010
Click file-> New project - > Web -> select ASP.NET web application
Give appropriate project name and save the project
Right click and add new class and close the solution.
Open the test project and add the website. The solution will look like
Create a simple method in class file as DisplayText which returns string
Create unit test for the above method in UnitTest1.cs as
Launch test impact view by clicking on Test -> Windows - > Test impact view
If the test impact diagnostic data is not enabled, click on the link in test impact view window to enable it. Alternatively, you can also set it in test settings as below ( Test -> Edit test settings - > Data and diagnostics)
Now build the solution and run the unit test to baseline data
Click on Test-> Windows -> Test view
Select the test method and click on run
At this point the test impact view will look like
Now, lets change the code in DisplayText method and add line of code as
Since there is change in code it shows up in impacted tests as
Select the impacted test and click on run tests. Make sure the unit test passes to ensure the code change hasn’t effected the test case.

- Syed Aslam Basha (syedab@microsoft.com)

Relationship experience division (RXD) Team

Test Lead

---------------------------------------------------------

Please leave a comment if the blog post has helped you.

Run CUIT from Microsoft Test Manager 2010

Syed Aslam basha — Thu, 12 May 2011 06:48:00 GMT

This is Syed Aslam Basha here from Information security and risk management team.

In continuation with previous blog let me show you How To run CUIT from Microsoft Test Manager (MTM) 2010.

Launch MTM from Start –> All Programs –>Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 – > Microsoft Test Manager 2010
Click on the plan tab, make sure the state is in “In progress”
Click on test tab and select the required suite. You will see the test cases in right hand pane.
Select the automated test cases and click on Run button. If you want to change the run options select run with options
The CUIT will be run and you will see the result as pass or fail
Click on the view results to see the test results

- Syed Aslam Basha (syedab@microsoft.com)

Microsoft Information Security Tools (IST) Team

Test Lead

---------------------------------------------------------

Please leave a comment if the blog post has helped you.

Creating test settings in Microsoft Test Manager 2010

Syed Aslam basha — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 05:02:00 GMT

This is Syed Aslam Basha here from Information security and risk management team.

In continuation with previous blog lets create test environment for the test plan in Microsoft Test Manager (MTM) 2010.

Launch MTM from Start –> All Programs –>Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 – > Microsoft Test Manager 2010
Click on organize tab, select the test plan and double click on it
Select New from test settings
Enter Name and description and click on next
Select the role to use to run your automated tests as “web client” and click on next
For each role in the test environment select the data you want to collect or the actions to perform on the system and click on next
Click on next
Click on finish
You have successfully created test settings

- Syed Aslam Basha (syedab@microsoft.com)

Microsoft Information Security Tools (IST) Team

Test Lead

---------------------------------------------------------

Please leave a comment if the blog post has helped you.

C# Code Coverage using VS2010

Syed Aslam basha — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 06:42:00 GMT

This is Syed Aslam Basha here from Information security and risk management team.

Code coverage describes the degree up to which the source code of the program has been tested. The process would involve setting up code coverage and testing the entire application.

Preconditions

You should have pdb files for the DLLs and deployed the bits

Steps to setup code coverage

Open command prompt in privileged mode
Change the directory to \Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Team Tools\Performance Tools\ or C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Team Tools\Performance Tools\x64 for X64 bit setup (OS and VS)
Instrument application dlls by running the command vsinstr -coverage “…\abc.dll” (Dlls are usually found in bin directory). This step will create backup of original DLL with .orig extension and instruments the dll
Start coverage monitor by running the command \Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Team Tools\Performance Tools >start vsperfmon -coverage -output:"D:\xyz.coverage" /CS /user:everyone
Run your tests(unit test cases/ CUIT /manual) pointing the instrumented bits
Stop the coverage monitor by running the command vsperfcmd /shutdown
Open the file xyz.coverage to find your code coverage results.
The code coverage results would look like, it shows 80% code coverage and 20% code is not covered

- Syed Aslam Basha (syedab@microsoft.com)

Microsoft Information Security Tools (IST) Team

Test Lead

---------------------------------------------------------

Please leave a comment if the blog post has helped you.

Creating Test Environment in Microsoft Test Manager 2010

Syed Aslam basha — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 05:29:00 GMT

This is Syed Aslam Basha here from Information security and risk management team.

In continuation with previous blog lets create test environment for the test plan in Microsoft Test Manager (MTM) 2010.

Launch MTM from Start –> All Programs –>Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 – > Microsoft Test Manager 2010
Click on organize tab, select the test plan and double click on it
It shows the plan with default automated run configuration settings as
Click on Manage
It will show Lab Center with Lab tab selected
Click on new, it shows three options to create environment. Select New physical environment
Enter environment name and description, select the test controller you have created (as shown in earlier blogs)
Click on next
Select each machine and click on add to environment (Note: The machines (web server and DB server)/Test agents should have been registered with controller to show)
Select the added machine and select web client. This is the machine which is controller machine and also the automated test cases (CUIT) will be run from this machine.
Likewise, add machines for web server and DB server and select role as web server and DB server
Click on next
Click on next
Click on finish
You have created test environment successfully.

- Syed Aslam Basha (syedab@microsoft.com)

Microsoft Information Security Tools (IST) Team

Test Lead

---------------------------------------------------------

Please leave a comment if the blog post has helped you.

Creating test plan in Microsoft Test Manager 2010

Syed Aslam basha — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 05:14:00 GMT

This is Syed Aslam Basha here from Information security and risk management team.

In this blog I will show “Creating test plan in Microsoft Test Manager (MTM) 2010.

Launch MTM from Start –> All Programs –>Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 – > Microsoft Test Manager 2010
Click on Add server
Enter the team foundation server name or URL and click on add
Select a node and expand, select the team project and click on connect now
If you have already created a plan select a test plan or click on add button to create a test plan
Enter the plan name and click on add
Select the test plan and click on select plan
It shows the plan with default configuration settings as
Click on the organize tab
Select test plan manager
The screen shows the test plans created.
You can create new test plan by clicking on new button.
You can open the existing test plan by selecting the test plan and clicking on open button.
You can delete the test plan by selecting the test plan and clicking on delete button.
Select the test plan and click on open
The test plan with default settings is shown. You can add/update name, description, state, start and end date, area path and iteration path. I will be covering run settings in the next blog post.

- Syed Aslam Basha (syedab@microsoft.com)

Microsoft Information Security Tools (IST) Team

Test Lead

---------------------------------------------------------

Please leave a comment if the blog post has helped you.

Create basic build definition in VS2010

Syed Aslam basha — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 02:43:00 GMT

This is Syed Aslam Basha here from Information security and risk management team.

In this blog I will show “How to create basic build definition”.

Pre-requisites:

Build system should be configured
You should have edit build definition permissions

Build definition helps in setting up automated build generation, compile source, generate bits to a preconfigured shared folder.

Steps to create build definition:

Launch Visual Studio (VS) 2010
Select the team project in team explorer
Click on Build –> New Build Definition menu
Enter build definition name and description
Click on trigger, select one of the required check-in trigger options. example continuous integration build each check-in – this build is queued in every time chance is checked in the files that are built by this definition
Click on workspace, select the source bits which will be compiled, example: the test automation project (checked in TFS)
Click on build defaults, select build controller, enter the share folder path to which compiled bits and log files to be copied
Click on process, select the project to build example the test automation project
Click on test assembly, enter test assembly file
Select the required build definition format, example when build is completed build definition name along with date format folder will be created in shared folder and the bits will be copied in the folder.
Save the build definition

We are good to use build definition.

- Syed Aslam Basha (syedab@microsoft.com)

Microsoft Information Security Tools (IST) Team

Test Lead

---------------------------------------------------------

Please leave a comment if the blog post has helped you.

Installing and Configuring Test Agent

Syed Aslam basha — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 14:32:00 GMT

This is Syed Aslam Basha here from Information security and risk management team.

In continuation with my earlier blog posts on automation using VS2010, I will show “Installing and configuring test agent” which will help in running the CUITs from Microsoft Test Manager.

Install the test agent by going through the installation wizard
Launch configure test agent from start –> All programs –> Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 –> Microsoft Visual Studio Test Agent 2010 Configuration Tool
Enter domain\username in username and password in password text box
Logon automatically: If this is checked it logs on automatically using the credentials provided, after computer restarts (due to windows updates or any other reason)
Click on “Ensure screensaver is disabled” checkbox to disable screensaver
Click on run options button, make a selection to run the test agent as
Service: The test agent will run as windows service, this is recommended mode when you need to run the automated tests that do not need to interact with desktop
Interactive process: The test agent will run as interactive process, this is the you will not to select interactive process for coded UI tests
Click on checkbox “Register with test controller” and enter the controller name with port as 6901. Ex Controllername:6901, the agent will be registered with the controller and the controller can manage the agent
Click on Apply Settings button
This will configure the windows firewall to allow the test controller to communicate with the test agent
The Test Agent Status will be shown near system tray, it will show the test progress ( test case execution) while running the tests

- Syed Aslam Basha (syedab@microsoft.com)

Microsoft Information Security Tools (IST) Team

Test Lead

---------------------------------------------------------

Please leave a comment if the blog post has helped you.

Installing and Configuring Test Controller

Syed Aslam basha — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 14:05:00 GMT

This is Syed Aslam Basha here from Information security and risk management team.

In continuation with my earlier blog posts on automation using VS2010, I will show “Installing and configuring test controller” which will help in running the CUITs from Microsoft Test Manager.

Install the test controller by going through the installation wizard
Launch configure test controller from start –> All programs –> Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 –> Microsoft Visual Studio Test Controller 2010 Configuration Tool
You can select network service/ this account (enter user name and password to be used) for the test controller service to be used
Click on checkbox “Register with team project collection” this will be required as I will be creating and using environments to run tests
Enter team project collection as http://YourTFS:8080/TFS/MyCollection. Make sure you select/enter appropriate team project collection. You should have access on TFS and the team project collection. Get the required access from your admin.
Click on Apply settings
This will configure windows firewall to allow test controller to communicate with test agents and also registers the test controller with team project collection.

- Syed Aslam Basha (syedab@microsoft.com)

Microsoft Information Security Tools (IST) Team

Test Lead

---------------------------------------------------------

Please leave a comment if the blog post has helped you.

Associating coded UI test to manual testcase

Syed Aslam basha — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 14:53:00 GMT

This is Syed Aslam Basha here from Information security and risk management team.

In earlier blog posts I have shown automating functional test cases using coded UI Test (CUIT), here I will show “Associating CUIT to manual testcase.

Right click on the solution, click on check-in.
Check-in to Team foundation server (TFS) to appropriate folder, you should have permissions to check-in
Open manual test case for which you want to associate CUIT in VS2010
Click on automation tab
Click on associate an automated test with test case ellipse
The checked project along with CUITs will be shown, select appropriate CUIT name for the test case
Click on ok
The CUIT is associated with the test case
You can remove the association by clicking on “Remove association” button

- Syed Aslam Basha (syedab@microsoft.com)

Microsoft Information Security Tools (IST) Team

Test Lead

---------------------------------------------------------

Please leave a comment if the blog post has helped you.

HTTP Redirect in IIS 7.0

Syed Aslam basha — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 03:17:00 GMT

This is Syed Aslam Basha here from Information security and risk management team.

We had a website in pilot and the URL was applicaitonnamepilot. It was decided to move the website to production by removing the pilot from all the places in the website including URL as applicationname. But the customers and stake holders might have bookmarked the link, as they navigate they will get error page. To overcome this we can use HTTP redirect feature in IIS. I set up new website as applicaitonname and redirected the applicaitonnamepilot URL to applicationname as:

Launch IIS manager by Start –> Run – > inetmgr and press enter
Click on the sites and navigate to the pilot website
Click on HTTP redirect
Click on checkbox “Redirect requests to this destination” and enter appropriate URL to be redirected to
Status code has three options

Found (302): Tells the Web client to issue a new request to the location.
Permanent (301): Tells the Web client that the location for the requested resource has permanently moved.
Temporary (307): Tells the web client to resend POST data, which prevents a Web browser from losing data when the browser issues an HTTP POST request.

Select permanent (301)
Click on Apply in actions pane

The users hitting the pilot URL applicationnamepilot will be redirected to applicationame .

- Syed Aslam Basha (syedab@microsoft.com)

Microsoft Information Security Tools (IST) Team

Test Lead

---------------------------------------------------------

Please leave a comment if the blog post has helped you.

API Testing framework

Syed Aslam basha — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 14:46:00 GMT

This is Syed Aslam Basha here from Information security and risk management team.

For one of my projects I had to test APIs, which takes input string, encode the input and return the encoded output strings. In this blog post am going to give the concept of API testing framework I used to test the APIs using reflection. We have other approaches of API testing like extending unit testing or using PEX.

The framework works in two phases:

Phase1:

The framework expects the path with the assembly to be tested
Analyzes the assembly, generates the input files and expected files along with folder structure

Phase2:

The input and expected files should be updated with required test data
Tests each API in the assembly with the set of test input data, compare with the expected data and generates report in output file
It generates two reports

First report gives information about each API, its input, output and expected values and status for each test data
Second report gives overall status of testing along with the API name and its pass/fail status

- Syed Aslam Basha (syedab@microsoft.com)

Microsoft Information Security Tools (IST) Team

Test Lead

---------------------------------------------------------

Please leave a comment if the blog post has helped you.

Linking work item types in VSTF 2010

Syed Aslam basha — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 09:49:00 GMT

This is Syed Aslam Basha here from Information security and risk management team.

In the previous blog post we discussed “Creating and Using Team Foundation Server 2010 Queries”, lets explore linking work item types in VSTF 2010 - for example say creating sub tasks.

Create two tasks say task and sub task
Open the task, go to all links tab
Click on “link to…”
Select child in link type
Click on Browse button
Click on IDs and enter work item ID and click on Find
Select the work item ID
Click Ok
Click on Ok
You have created the sub task for task, run the query (tree of work items type) to see the effect
Similarly you can create link between other work item types, with various link types affectedby, child, parent etc)

- Syed Aslam Basha (syedab@microsoft.com)

Microsoft Information Security Tools (IST) Team

Test Lead

How To: Create and Use Team Foundation Server 2010 Queries

Syed Aslam basha — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 14:33:00 GMT

This is Syed Aslam Basha here from Information security and risk management team.

Lets explore the basics of creating and using queries in Team foundation server (TFS).

First and foremost you should connect to the project for which you want to create queries as;

Launch the visual studio
Click on View – > Team explorer
Click on the connect to team project in the team explorer
Click on servers button
Click on add button
Enter the name of the TFS
Click on ok
Click on close
Select the required project from team project collections
Select the required projects and click on connect
The team explorer should show
Expand the project and work Items
You should see two group of queries; my queries and team queries
My queries: User can create/modify/delete the queries here, which are personal queries available to user only
Team queries: You need to have project administrator permissions to create/modify/delete queries here, these are available to entire team
The process of creating/modify/delete remains same in either of the groups
Right click on the my queries and select new query
There are three types of queries

Flat list (Default) – The query result set of this type will be depend on only work items only; it will return only list of items without any filter; similar to that of TFS 2008 feature; Example for bugs work item type, the query result is ( click on run to see the query result)
Work Items and Direct Links – The query result set of this type will depend on
- Flat list
- Linked work items query and
- linking filters
- Useful for work item types like tasks which will have sub tasks and want to list all Task items along with sub task items based on linking filters
- In the above example, first section will give result set of all Task items, second section will give all linked task items for each task and filters based on return all top level work items and return links of any type and the result is; ( Click on run button to see the query result)
- Click on the fly out in title to see the sub tasks
- Linking filters: We have two groups of linking filters
  - Top level work items: This has three types
    - Return all top level work items – Returns all top level work items
    - Only return items that have the specified links – Returns items based on the type of links specified (see next section)
    - Only return items that do not have the specified links – Reverse of the second type
  - Types of links: There are two types of links
    - Return links of any type – returns links irrespective of the link type ( Creating links and its usage would be covered in the next blog post)
    - Return selected link types – Returns only selected link types. Example say set child type of link and top level work items as only return items that have specified links will give query result having work items with sub work items; ( Click on run button to see the query result)
    - Similarly you can try other combinations
Tree of work items – The query result of this type depends on flat list and linked work items. Example the query result set shows all task items in tree mode ( Click on run button to see the query result)

Make the required selections and click on save query
Click on Run to see the query result

- Syed Aslam Basha (syedab@microsoft.com)

Microsoft Information Security Tools (IST) Team

Test Lead

---------------------------------------------------------

Please leave a comment if the blog post has helped you.

Printing stored procedure

Syed Aslam basha — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 13:12:00 GMT

This is Syed Aslam Basha here from Information security and risk management team.

For one of my projects I had to validate the changes in some 50 stored procedures (SP). You can do this in;

Connect to DB, Click on your Database (DB), programmability –> stored procedures, right click on the each SP and click on modify to open and validate it
Easy way is to, right click on your database, click on tasks, click on generate scripts follow through the script wizard and generate the scripts to a file
One more way is by coding

sp_helptext “stored procedure name” it prints one SP code
The following code lists out code for all the SPs in a DB

use master

GO 

drop table #temp1

create table #temp1 (id int identity,name varchar(128))

USE YourDBname

GO 

insert into #temp1 select name from sysobjects where xtype='p'

go

declare @var int

declare @sp_name varchar(128)

declare @cmd varchar(128)

set @var = 1

while @var <= (select count (1) from #temp1)

begin

select @sp_name = name from #temp1 where id = @var

set @cmd = 'sp_helptext ' + @sp_name

exec (@cmd)

set @var = @var+1

end

go

- Syed Aslam Basha (syedab@microsoft.com)

Microsoft Information Security Tools (IST) Team

Test Lead

---------------------------------------------------------

Please leave a comment if the blog post has helped you.

Data warehouse concepts

Syed Aslam basha — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 06:35:00 GMT

This is Syed Aslam Basha here from Information security and risk management team.

During my initial stages at Microsoft, I had an opportunity to work on a data warehousing project. This write up is follow-up with the hands on experience I had with the project for over a year.

Let me give a brief history of the project, v3.0 was a simple on-line transaction processing (OLTP) solution developed with SQL 2005. The drawbacks with the system was

Huge wait time for the queries to execute and complete
Difficulty in maintenance
Difficulty in extending the functionalities
Limitation of amount of data storage

We went from OLTP in v3.0 to on-line analytical processing OLAP v4.0 aiming to overcome the drawbacks and also improve on the amount of data storage with SQL 2008 and use features like table partitioning, compression and others;

Less time to execute even complex queries
Performance improvements in terms of processing, data loading and querying data
Progress information
Effective usage of the available resources
Beautiful executive reports can be generated and shared with customers
Ease of maintenance and extendibility
Better analysis of data
Huge amount of storage of data 60 TB

The following are the definition and differences of OLTP and OLTA:

On-line transaction processing (OLTP): It’s normally used in day to day transaction applications, forms original source of data and involves on-line transactions insert, update and delete. The systems are fast in query processing and maintain data integrity.

On-line analytical processing (OLAP): Used in data mining solutions, source of data can come from OLTP DBs or log files, helps in analyzing data and make appropriate planning and decisions, multi-dimensional view of the business activities.

Let’s understand the basics of data warehousing terminologies involved;

Data warehousing is suitable for solutions which require analysis of huge sets of data. It will have star/snowflake schema, dimension tables, fact tables, rules and ETL tools.

Star schema: In star schema one fact table associated with one or more dimension tables you can visualize it as a star fact table being in the center and dimensions surrounding it. Star schema has fact table in normalized format and dimensions in de normalized format.

Snowflake schema: In snowflake schema one fact table is associated with one or more dimension tables and these dimension tables are associated with one or more dimension tables. In this both fact and dimensions are in normalized format.

We used star schema in our data warehouse solution.

Dimension tables: stores information like identity based on which we want to query the data warehouse fact tables example sales by country; here country becomes dimension all countries will be stored in the countries dimension table.

Fact tables: stores information like the facts which are essentially stores all transactions example sales or purchase transactions.

Rules: Before storing data we may want to apply certain business rule. We have Transformation rules, filter rules and lookup rules.

Transformation rule: Before storing data in to data warehouse we want to transform the data available example aggregate data before storing or remove version number.

Filter rule: Certain data we don’t want to store in data warehouse example invalid links or page not found links details which are present in source we don’t want in data warehouse use the filter rule.

Lookup rule: Update certain dimensions while loading data from source example updating dimension countries

The dimensions and rules needs to be defined by the business.

At high level any data warehouse will have the following components:

Source of data – source is upstream, it can be database or log files
Dimension tables data – data comes from feed store or from source
Fact tables data – data comes from source
Processing of data – extract data, apply rules, transform and load in data warehouse
Notification mails
Event log
Views to query data
Different user profiles DB to run adhoc queries using SQL 2008
Reports – reports forms the downstream for the data warehouse

There can be multiple levels or layers to achieve the same say data from source is copied using batch job tool and for processing and loading data we can use extract transform and load (ETL) tools example SSIS.

- Syed Aslam Basha (syedab@microsoft.com)

Microsoft Information Security Tools (IST) Team

Test Lead

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Please leave a comment if the blog post has helped you.

Generate GUID using guidgen.exe

Syed Aslam basha — Mon, 10 May 2010 04:41:00 GMT

This is Syed Aslam Basha here from Information security and risk management team.

You can generate Global unique identifier (GUID) using guidgen.exe, which is installed at “C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\bin\NETFX 4.0 Tools\guidgen.exe"

Launch GUID generator;

Click on start->All programs->Microsoft Visual studio 2010->Microsoft Windows SDK tools->GUID generator

When the tool is launched or when you click on New GUID a new GUID is generated in result box. Click on copy to copy it to clipboard and use it. You can generate GUIDs in required format by selecting different GUID formats available.

-Syed Aslam Basha (syedab@microsoft.com)

Microsoft Information Security Tools (IST) Team

Test Lead

---------------------------------------------------------

Please leave a comment if the blog post has helped you.

How To: Generate lots of Globally unique identifiers (GUID) using SQL 2008

Syed Aslam basha — Mon, 03 May 2010 06:07:00 GMT

Syed Aslam Basha here from the Information Security Tools Team.

For one of my projects I had to load the database (DB) with huge number of transactions and check for look and feel of the application. Some of the fields in DB required unique identifier, with the following SQL statement you can generate single GUID

 1: select NEWID()

You can use the following code snippet to generate the required number of GUIDs by modifying the RequiredNoOfGuids value

use master

GO 

drop table #GUIDstable

create table #GUIDstable (GUIDsCol uniqueidentifier)

declare @RequiredNoOfGuids int

set @RequiredNoOfGuids = 2

while @RequiredNoOfGuids > (select count (1) from #GUIDstable)

begin

insert into #GUIDstable select NEWID()

end

go

select * from #GUIDstable

go

I am sure there are many ways of doing the same, I have used temp tables for my requirement. Any other ways?

-Syed Aslam Basha (syedab@microsoft.com)

Microsoft Information Security Tools (IST) Team

Test Lead

---------------------------------------------------------

Please leave a comment if the blog post has helped you.