Application Lifecycle Management with TFS

 Mehdi Khalili Consultant at Readify Code, lead and mentor by day Blog and hack on OSS by night Blog: www.mehdi-khalili.com Twitter: @MehdiKhalili

 ALM ALM the TFS way  Team Collections and Team Projects  Version Control and branching  Build Automation  Work Item Tracking  Team Collaboration Using Portal  Web Access! Putting it all together

There may be glitches in demos due to our virtual setupThis is not a TFS only talk. We are going to talk about ALM and software processes and methodologies

 A quick tour of our virtual environment  Windows Server 2008  SQL Server 2008 R2 ▪ Database ▪ Reporting Services ▪ Analysis Services  Windows SharePoint Services 3.0  Team Foundation Server 2010  Visual Studio 2010 Premium

What is it?

 “continuous process of managing the life of an application” Increases productivity Improves quality Accelerates development through simplified integration Cuts maintenance time Maximizes investments Increases flexibility …

 Build management Release/deployment Testing Requirements management Work item management Project management Change management Configuration management ….

The most integrated ALM solution in .Net land

 A quick tour of the Administration Console  Application Tier  Team Project Collections ▪ Team Projects ▪ SharePoint portal ▪ Reporting  Build Configurations ▪ Build Controllers ▪ Build Agents

 The basic unit of recovery One database per collection Benefits  Scalability: load balance  Backup and recovery  Security isolation  Information sharing Organizational/team structure

 The largest unit of work associated with developing a single product or product line Each collection can have many team projects

 Creating Team Projects is time consuming Per Team Project you will get  Milestones and release schedules  Areas and Iterations  Version Control Settings  ALM methodology  Process Template and its customization  Portal

 CMMI Agile Scrum

Work Item ComparisonAgile ScrumBug BugIssue ImpedimentUser Story Product Backlog ItemTask TaskN/A Sprint

User Story vs. PBIUser Story Product Backlog ItemTitle TitleDescription DescriptionRank Backlog PriorityStory Points EffortBusiness Value Business ValueAcceptance Criteria Acceptance Criteria

 Off to Team Explorer

 Customize a project’s template Customize Project Template

AKA Source Control Management

 A journal of changes to your code All actions are irreversible: if you make a mistake you can only reverse it by compensating actions (well, except in git which allows you to rewrite the history – oh yeah)

 Atomic check-ins Branching and merging Shelving Labeling Concurrent check-outs Check-in policies Association of check-ins with work items

 Add a project to source control Workspaces Get a project Get latest Get specific Check-in Check-out and Lock!!! Undo changes Shelve-sets: shelving and unshelving Move …and Source Control File Types

 Check-out settings  Bringing VSS annoyance to TFS!! Check-in policy  Some useful policies  And some are unnecessary and annoying Check-in notes

The Dark Side ofVersion Control!

 Feature branch Dev branch Release branch Hotfix branch Integration isolation Technology specific branch

 Create a branch Make some changes on the branch Merge changes back Make some changes on the branch Make some changes on the mainline Merge changes and resolve the conflict

 “No Branching”, Says Me But if you REALLY need branching at least do it on demand And then do your best to remove the demand ;-)

 Create a label on the release Do NOT create a branch If you need to fix some bugs on the release branch off the label Do NOT forget to merge your changes back

 Chrome with hundreds of millions of users is released every six weeks Chrome Canary is released once a day Flickr with hundreds of millions of users deploys to production 10 times a day

 You need to maintain workable Mainline You want to check-in frequently Conflicting needs Feature branching seems like the solution

From Feature Branching By Martin Fowler

 Make your features small Have very few features in progress Do not create developer silos Branching is painful. You may reduce the pain; but it is always going to hurt

 Avoid branching using  Smaller features  Shorter sprints  Feature Toggle  Branch By Abstraction … but sometimes you just HAVE to create a branch. That is ok because it should not happen often

The relief we are after

 Integrate your work frequently Everyone checks into Mainline on daily basis Every commit should be built Builds should include test runs Keep the build fast Keep your tests fast Use CI to drive your Automated Deployment

 With or without branches, please continuously integrate back and forward And do not forget: Mainline is the king!From Feature Branching By Martin Fowler

 AKA baseless merge in TFS land Only doable through command prompt This is not a good ideausually And we never talked about it – alright?!

 Offline Mode Source History Code Annotation Diff tools  Comparing files  Comparing folders Merge tools  Two way merge  Three way merge

This is an important part of Continuous Integration

 Several triggers:  Manual  CI  Rolling Builds  Gated Check-In  Scheduled From MSBuild in 2008 to WF in 2010  Some are happy and some like me are sad pandas

 Manual: most useful for deployment builds CI: Good for CI Rolling Build: Useful when you have a big team and devs check-in very frequently Gated Check-In: Useful for junior teams and for your Mainline if you have many branches Schedule: useful for functional tests, nightly builds, …

 Install TFS on your agent machine Set it up as an agent for the build controller Give your agents good names Optionally give it some tags You can use tags in your build definition  Or when you queue the build You can see a list of controllers and agents from team explorer

 You can queue  The latest code  A shelveset  A changeset  A label

 Test result Broken test could break the build Keeping a build result around Build Log MSBuild Log Drop folder Build folder

 Get (late) notifications on builds Desktop notification from TFS Do not rely on it; but having it could help

Remember Chrome and FlickrIf you want to win you should do the same

Short HappyContinuous FeedbackIntegration Cycle CustomerContinuous Continuous Testing Delivery

 No matter how big your application is, if your deployment takes more than a minute to trigger you are doing it wrong Some cool tools:  MSDeploy  TFSDeployer

 You need to apply database transformation as part of your push-button deployment Some cool tools  MigratorDotNet  DBUP

 Different environments have different settings To create push-button deployment you need to easily apply config transformations Some cool tools  CodeAssassin.ConfigTransform  SlowCheetah

No CMMI Please!

 Integrated work item tracking system Integration with Version Control Requirements, tasks, bugs, issues, test cases Extensible:  Create your custom fields  Change the layout  Available states  State transitions

 Create a sprint Create iterations and areas Create Product Backlog Item/Story Create tasks and subtasks Create bugs Create impediments Check-in code against a backlog item Create custom queries

 Editing multiple entries at once Populating your backlog

 Backlog is a living creature!! If your backlog is not growing your product is dead Backlog MUST be always prioritized Do not forget to groom your backlog The Team should help PO groom the backlog Prioritize your backlog Backlog MUST be always prioritized

Customer Preferences Attractive One-Dimensional Must-Be Indifferent Reverse

 Deny is THE king  And then there are administrators ▪ Project Collection Administrators ▪ Project Administrators ▪ Team Foundation Administrators Allow is the king in the absence of Deny Unset means denied unless stated otherwise  This is where inheritance shines

 Administer warehouse Create team project collection Delete team project collection Edit instance-level information Make requests on behalf of others Trigger Events Use full Web Access features View instance-level information

 SharePoint Web Application Services Team Foundation Administrators Team Foundation Service Accounts Team Foundation Valid Users Work Item Only View Users

 Administer shelved changes Administer workspaces Create a workspace Create new projects Delete team project Manage process template Manage build resources Delete team project collection ….

 Project Collection Administrators Project Collection Service Accounts Project Collection Build Administrators Project Collection Build Service Accounts Project Collection Valid Users Collection Proxy Service Accounts Project Collection Test Service Accounts

 Project Administrators Contributors Readers Builders

 Permission Levels:  Project  Build  Work Item Query  Areas  Iterations  Version Control And each has very granular permissions

 Create different AD groups for different roles TFS has to be granular to suit every need Do not over specify – a few groups would usually suffice Do not lock it in: adapt as need arises

 Project documents and requirements Process Guidance Dashboard with reports about ongoing things Wiki Some versioning goodness

 Announcements Contacts Discussion Boards Out of TFS Tasks Surveys …. RSS subscriptions Alerts

 Environment Lists: Name, status, URLs, current release info, access details if need be Active Risks Sprint info: sprint No., goal, start and end dates, daily stand-up location and time, review location and time Project Glossary Important Dates Contacts

 Create/Edit Work Items and Work Item Queries Create/Edit Areas and Iterations Read-only access to Version Control Access to Team Build A Work Item Only View (doesnt require CAL)

 Your work items (or any work item) changes  Or a work item is assigned to you  Or a new work item is created Build Quality Changes  Or a build completes  Or it fails Anything is checked in  Or there is a check-in on a specific file  Or a folder  Or a file extension  Or when a check-in policy is overridden

 Roles  Ceremonies  Product Owner  Sprint planning  ScrumMaster  Daily standup  The Team  Sprint review  Sprint retrospective Documents  Product backlog  Sprint backlog  Burndown charts

All that said ...

 There is no silver bullet - NEVER … and TFS is no exception A good process succeeds regardless of tools To succeed we should  Be transparent  Inspect  Adapt Get as much feedback as frequently as possible … and the tool comes next

Let’s run a project!

 git-tfs and posh-git Team Foundation Sidekicks Team Foundation Power Tools Telerik’s TFS Project Dashboard TFS Integration Tools TFS Administration Tools Just search for them

 TFS Permissions: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms252587(v=vs.100).aspx VS TFS Branching Guidance: http://vsarbranchingguide.codeplex.com/ Continuous Integration: http://martinfowler.com/articles/continuousIntegration.html Feature Branching: http://martinfowler.com/bliki/FeatureBranch.html

 Branch By Abstraction: http://continuousdelivery.com/2011/05/make-large-scale- changes-incrementally-with-branch-by-abstraction/ Feature Toggle: http://martinfowler.com/bliki/FeatureToggle.html Mitigate your merge issues: http://www.mehdi-khalili.com/mitigate-your-merge-issues

 MSDeploy: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/WebDeploymentMadeAw esomeIfYoureUsingXCopyYoureDoingItWrong.aspxhttp://ch annel9.msdn.com/events/mix TFSDeployer: http://tfsdeployer.codeplex.com/ TFS Sidekicks: http://www.attrice.info/cm/tfs/ App and Web Config Transformation http://www.mehdi-khalili.com/transform-app-config-and-web-config

 Team Foundation Power Tools: http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/c255a1e 4-04ba-4f68-8f4e-cd473d6b971f Telerik’s TFS project dashboard: http://www.telerik.com/agile-project-management- tools/tfs.aspx TFS Integration Tools: http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/eb77e739- c98c-4e36-9ead-fa115b27fefe TFS Administrations Tools: http://tfsadmin.codeplex.com

Application Lifecycle Management with TFS

by Mehdi Khalili

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Application Lifecycle Management with TFS Presentation Transcript