{"id":1326,"date":"2008-12-30T01:03:27","date_gmt":"2008-12-30T01:03:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2008\/12\/a-quick-look-at-lab-management-in-visual-studio-team-system-2010.htm"},"modified":"2008-12-30T01:03:27","modified_gmt":"2008-12-30T01:03:27","slug":"a-quick-look-at-lab-management-in-visual-studio-team-system-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2008\/12\/a-quick-look-at-lab-management-in-visual-studio-team-system-2010.htm","title":{"rendered":"A quick look at Lab Management in Visual Studio Team System 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A few weeks ago <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2008\/11\/useful-links-november-2008.htm\">I referred to Microsoft\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s announcement of Visual Studio 2010 Lab Management<\/a>, asking if this was Microsoft\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s answer to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vmware.com\/products\/sm\/\">VMware Stage Manager<\/a> and the answer is\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 sort of.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know a huge amount about Stage Manager but <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2008\/09\/vmware-virtualization-forum-2008.htm\">the basic premise is that it targets release management by placing virtual machine images into a configuration (a service) and then promoting or demoting configurations between environments<\/a> based on the rights assigned to a user. Images can also be archived or cloned to create a copy for further testing.<\/p>\n<p>Microsoft\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s approach is subtly different \u00e2\u20ac\u201c as should be expected with a product that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s part of Visual Studio it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s focused on aiding developers to avoid configuration drift and to perform repetitive system tests during the application development lifecycle, leaving the System Center management products to manage the movement of virtual machines between environments in the virtual infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p>The VSTS approach attempts to address a number of fundamental issues:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Reproduction of bugs. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a common scenario \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a tester files a bug but the developer is unable to reproduce it so, after a few rounds of bugfix ping-pong, the incident is closed with a norepo status, resulting in poor morale on both sides.&#160; Lab Management allows the definition of test cases for manual testing (marking steps as passes\/fails) and including an action log of all steps performed by the tester.&#160; When an error occurs, the environment state can be checkpointed (including the memory, registry, operating system and software state), allowing for reproduction of the issue.&#160; A system of collectors is used to gather diagnostic data, and, with various methods provided for recording tests (as a video, a checkpoint, an action log or an event log), it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s possible to automate the bug management and tracking process including details, system information, test cases and links to logs\/checkpoints \u00e2\u20ac\u201c all information is provided to the developer within the Visual Studio interface and the developer has access to the tester\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s environment. In addition, because each environment is made up of a number of virtual machines \u00e2\u20ac\u201c rather than running all application tiers on a single box \u00e2\u20ac\u201c so-called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153double-hop\u00e2\u20ac\u009d issues are avoided whereby the application works on one box but issues appear when it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s scaled out. In short: Lab Management improves quality. <\/li>\n<li>Environment setup. Setting up test environments is complex but, using Lab Management, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s possible for a developer to use a self-service portal to rapidly create an new environment (from a template (not just a VM, but the many interacting roles which make up that environment \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a group of virtual machines with an identity &#8211; for example an n-tier web application).&#160; These environments may be copied, shared or checkpointed.&#160; The Lab Environment Viewer allows the developer to view the various VM consoles in a single window (avoiding multiple Remote Desktop Connection instances) as well as providing access to checkpoints, allowing developers to switch between different versions of an environment and, because multiple environment checkpoints use the same IP address schema, supporting network fencing.&#160; In short: Lab Management improves productivity. <\/li>\n<li>Building often and releasing early.&#160; Setting up daily builds is complex and Lab Management\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ability to provide clean environments is an important tool in the application development team\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s arsenal.&#160; Using VSTS, a developer can define builds including triggers (e.g. date and time, number of check-ins) and processes (input parameters, environment details, scripts, checkpoints, unit tests to run, etc.).&#160; The traditional build cycle of develop\/compile, deploy, run tests becomes develop\/compile, restore environment, deploy, take checkpoint, run tests \u00e2\u20ac\u201c significantly improving flexibility and reducing setup times. In short: Lab Management improves agility. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>From an infrastructure perspective, Lab Management is implemented as a new role in Visual Studio Team System (VSTS), which itself is built on Team Foundation Server (TFS)Lab Management sits alongside Test Case Management (also new in Visual Studio 2010 &#8211; codenamed Camano), Build Management, Work Item Tracking and Source Control.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.msdn.com\/lab_management\/\">Vishal Mehotra<\/a>, a Senior Lead Program Manager working on VSTS Lab Management in Microsoft\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s India Development Center, explained to me that in addition to TFS, System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) is required to provide the virtual machine management capabilities (effectively VSTS Lab Management provides an abstraction layer on the environment using SCVMM). Whilst it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s obviously Microsoft\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s intention that the virtualisation platform will be Hyper-V, because SCVMM 2008 can manage VMware Virtual Center, it could also be VMware ESX.&#160; The use of enterprise virtualisation technologies means that the Lab Management environments are scalable and the VMs may be moved between environments when defining templates (e.g. to take an existing VM and move it from UAT into production, etc.).&#160; In addition, System Center Operations Managers adds further capabilities to the stack.<\/p>\n<p>Whilst the final product is some way off and the marketing is not finalised, it seems likely that Lab Management will be a separate SKU (including the System Center prerequisites).&#160; If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re looking to get your hands on it right now though you may be out of luck &#8211; unfortunately Lab Management is not part of the current CTP build for Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0.<\/p>\n<p>This post really just scrapes the surface (and, as I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not a developer, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about as far as I can take it).&#160; To find out more, <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.msdn.com\/somasegar\/archive\/2008\/12\/12\/lab-management-in-vsts-2010.aspx\">read about Lab Management in VSTS 2010 over at Somasegar\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Weblog<\/a> or check out the video of the PDC 2008 session on <a href=\"http:\/\/mschnlnine.vo.llnwd.net\/d1\/pdc08\/WMV-HQ\/TL37.wmv\">improving code quality with VSTS 2010 Lab Management<\/a>, presented by Principal Program Manager, Ram Cherala.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few weeks ago I referred to Microsoft\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s announcement of Visual Studio 2010 Lab Management, asking if this was Microsoft\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s answer to VMware Stage Manager and the answer is\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 sort of. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know a huge amount about Stage Manager but the basic premise is that it targets release management by placing virtual machine images &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2008\/12\/a-quick-look-at-lab-management-in-visual-studio-team-system-2010.htm\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">A quick look at Lab Management in Visual Studio Team System 2010<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[76,120],"class_list":["post-1326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-hyper-v","tag-visual-studio"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A quick look at Lab Management in Visual Studio Team System 2010 - markwilson.it<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2008\/12\/a-quick-look-at-lab-management-in-visual-studio-team-system-2010.htm\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A quick look at Lab Management in Visual Studio Team System 2010 - markwilson.it\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A few weeks ago I referred to Microsoft\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s announcement of Visual Studio 2010 Lab Management, asking if this was Microsoft\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s answer to VMware Stage Manager and the answer is\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 sort of. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know a huge amount about Stage Manager but the basic premise is that it targets release management by placing virtual machine images &hellip; Continue reading A quick look at Lab Management in Visual Studio Team System 2010\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2008\/12\/a-quick-look-at-lab-management-in-visual-studio-team-system-2010.htm\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"markwilson.it\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-12-30T01:03:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mark Wilson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@markwilsonit\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@markwilsonit\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mark Wilson\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.markwilson.co.uk\\\/blog\\\/2008\\\/12\\\/a-quick-look-at-lab-management-in-visual-studio-team-system-2010.htm#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.markwilson.co.uk\\\/blog\\\/2008\\\/12\\\/a-quick-look-at-lab-management-in-visual-studio-team-system-2010.htm\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Mark Wilson\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.markwilson.co.uk\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/98f61365e7c39d6be942174b8c4de468\"},\"headline\":\"A quick look at Lab Management in Visual Studio Team System 2010\",\"datePublished\":\"2008-12-30T01:03:27+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.markwilson.co.uk\\\/blog\\\/2008\\\/12\\\/a-quick-look-at-lab-management-in-visual-studio-team-system-2010.htm\"},\"wordCount\":930,\"commentCount\":1,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.markwilson.co.uk\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/98f61365e7c39d6be942174b8c4de468\"},\"keywords\":[\"Microsoft Virtual Server\\\/Hyper-V\",\"Microsoft Visual Studio\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.markwilson.co.uk\\\/blog\\\/2008\\\/12\\\/a-quick-look-at-lab-management-in-visual-studio-team-system-2010.htm#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.markwilson.co.uk\\\/blog\\\/2008\\\/12\\\/a-quick-look-at-lab-management-in-visual-studio-team-system-2010.htm\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.markwilson.co.uk\\\/blog\\\/2008\\\/12\\\/a-quick-look-at-lab-management-in-visual-studio-team-system-2010.htm\",\"name\":\"A quick look at Lab Management in Visual Studio Team System 2010 - markwilson.it\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.markwilson.co.uk\\\/blog\\\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2008-12-30T01:03:27+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.markwilson.co.uk\\\/blog\\\/2008\\\/12\\\/a-quick-look-at-lab-management-in-visual-studio-team-system-2010.htm#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.markwilson.co.uk\\\/blog\\\/2008\\\/12\\\/a-quick-look-at-lab-management-in-visual-studio-team-system-2010.htm\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.markwilson.co.uk\\\/blog\\\/2008\\\/12\\\/a-quick-look-at-lab-management-in-visual-studio-team-system-2010.htm#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.markwilson.co.uk\\\/blog\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"A quick look at Lab Management in Visual Studio Team System 2010\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.markwilson.co.uk\\\/blog\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.markwilson.co.uk\\\/blog\\\/\",\"name\":\"markwilson.it\",\"description\":\"get-info -class technology | write-output &gt; 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To complement the launch events and associated webcasts, Microsoft have produced the Microsoft developer road trip CD - a 45 minute audio download featuring information on Visual Studio 2005,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Microsoft\"","block_context":{"text":"Microsoft","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/tag\/microsoft"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2480,"url":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2010\/09\/upcoming-events-including-special-uktechdays-event.htm","url_meta":{"origin":1326,"position":1},"title":"Upcoming events (including special #uktechdays) event","author":"Mark Wilson","date":"Friday 3 September 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"We're having difficulties scheduling WSUG events right now. Without going into all the gory details, Microsoft's funding for rooms, etc. is not available in the way that it has been in the past, so we need to find another way to do things... Now that the summer holidays are over,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Cloud computing\"","block_context":{"text":"Cloud computing","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/tag\/cloud-computing"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1561,"url":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2009\/11\/mark-russinovich-explains-the-machine-sid-duplication-myth.htm","url_meta":{"origin":1326,"position":2},"title":"Mark Russinovich explains &#8220;the machine SID duplication myth&#8221;","author":"Mark Wilson","date":"Thursday 19 November 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"One of my colleagues just flagged a blog post I'd been meaning to read when I have a little more time from Microsoft (ex-SysInternals) Technical Fellow Mark Russinovich in which he discusses \"the machine SID duplication myth\". It seems that all of the effort we put into de-duplicating SIDs on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Microsoft Windows\"","block_context":{"text":"Microsoft Windows","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/tag\/windows"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1262,"url":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2008\/11\/useful-links-november-2008.htm","url_meta":{"origin":1326,"position":3},"title":"Useful Links: November 2008","author":"Mark Wilson","date":"Sunday 30 November 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"A list of items I've come across recently that I found potentially useful, interesting, or just plain funny: Microsoft Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool v2.0 - Updated with support for Hyper-V, System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 and Windows Server 2008 (as well as System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP1\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Useful Websites\"","block_context":{"text":"Useful Websites","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/tag\/useful-websites"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1095,"url":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2008\/07\/exchange-server-support-in-a-hyper-v-virtual-machine.htm","url_meta":{"origin":1326,"position":4},"title":"Exchange Server support in a Hyper-V virtual machine","author":"Mark Wilson","date":"Tuesday 1 July 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Virtualisation is great but it's not a \"one size fits all\" solution - some workloads just don't make sense for virtualisation. For many organisations, Exchange Server is one such workload but there are scenarios when it might be appropriate - at least for part of the messaging infrastructure. Up until\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Microsoft Exchange\"","block_context":{"text":"Microsoft Exchange","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/tag\/exchange"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1682,"url":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2010\/03\/why-windows-server-user-group-meetings-are-a-bit-like-london-buses.htm","url_meta":{"origin":1326,"position":5},"title":"Why Windows Server User Group meetings are a bit like London buses","author":"Mark Wilson","date":"Tuesday 9 March 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"There's a saying in the UK when multiples of something come along at the same time... \"like London buses... nothing and then three at once\" (based on the principle of bunching, for high frequency services - incidentally, that's an alien concept where I live - we're lucky if the bus\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2\"","block_context":{"text":"Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/tag\/windows-server-2008-r2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1326\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}