07 May 2013

ALM Readiness Treasure Map Update–Tracking Progress

ALM, ALM Rangers, Pirates
If you don’t follow the various ALM Rangers Solutions, you should!  If you do, then you already realize there is a lot of content put out by the various ALM Rangers project teams. In fact, there is so much information provided by the ALM Rangers that they have provided a Windows 8 app to help navigate the ever-changing waters of available content – the ALM Readiness Treasure Map. [If you’re running Windows 8, click the above image to install the app now] Coming Enhancements Although version 1 of the app has seen a lot of use, there is much room…
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12 Apr 2012

Team Foundation Service Whitepaper in Beta

ALM Rangers, TFS, Visual Studio 2012
The Visual Studio ALM Rangers have shipped another deliverable as part of the ALM Rangers Visual Studio 11 Readiness “Gig” Project – the Team Foundation Service Preview whitepaper. If you have been following the various developments of Visual Studio 11 and Team Foundation Server 11 then you are already aware that Microsoft now offers a cloud-based solution for TFS – currently referred to as the Team Foundation Service Preview.  Many of the features that are currently available in the “on-premises” version of TFS are also available in the cloud-based version (conversely, there are also some features in the cloud-based version…
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02 Mar 2012

Visual Studio 11 ALM Beta ALM Rangers Guides

ALM Rangers, Guidance
As we are mostly all aware, Microsoft released Visual Studio 11 Beta and Team Foundation Server 11 Beta yesterday morning (see links here).  What you might not realize is that the ALM Rangers released their initial wave of Visual Studio 11 ALM Readiness Guides. The initial wave includes the release of 10 guides to Microsoft’s CodePlex site: Practical Kanban Guide Practical Ruck Guide Team Foundation Build Customization Guide Team Foundation Server Planning Guide Team Foundation Server Upgrade Guide Test Release Management Guide Visual Studio ALM Rangers Personas and Scenarios Visual Studio Architecture Tooling Guide Visual Studio Lab Management Guide VM Factory…
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21 Jun 2011

Visual Studio Lab Management Guidance

ALM Rangers, Guidance, Visual Studio
It’s been a busy week for the ALM Rangers!  Not only was the Visual Studio Build Customization Guidance (read post) released but the Visual Studio Lab Management Guidance was released as well. Here’s some quick information from the project home page: Project Description This Visual Studio ALM Ranger project has the primary goal of delivering scenario based and hands-on guidance for the planning, setup, configuration and usage of Visual Studio Lab Management, backed by  custom VM Template automation for reference environments. Downloads The content is packaged in 3 separate zip files to give you the choice of selective downloads. The…
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21 Jun 2011

Visual Studio Build Customization Guidance

ALM Rangers, Guidance, Visual Studio
A few days ago, the Visual Studio Build Customization Guidance was officially released! Here’s some quick information from the project home page: Project Description This Visual Studio ALM Ranger project has the primary goal of delivering scenario based and hands-on lab guidance for the customization and deployment of Team Foundation Build 2010 activities such as versioning, code signing, and branching. Downloads The solution is divided in separate packages to give you the choice of selective downloads. The default download is the first of the listed packages: Guidance contains scenario based practical guidance, frequently asked questions and quick reference posters Selected…
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07 Jun 2011

What is the TFS (Iteration) Automation Platform?

ALM Rangers, TFS Automation Platform
One of the privileges I’ve had over the past couple of years has been the opportunity to work on several Visual Studio ALM Rangers projects.  Rangers projects provide the opportunity to interact with some very talented people on a daily basis.  Some of those people might by on the Visual Studio product group, others might be Microsoft employees in other areas, and others might be external Rangers – e.g. Microsoft MVPs or other contributors.  Add in various time zones across the planet and your typical Rangers project can turn out to be a great, yet rewarding, challenge. Most recently, I…
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13 Jul 2010

Visual Studio 2010 Quick Reference Guidance now in Spanish

ALM Rangers, Guidance, Visual Studio
Francisco Fagas, Microsoft Most Valuable professional (MVP) and Visual Studio ALM Ranger, has localized the Visual Studio 2010 Quick Reference Guidance for the Spanish communities. Find the latest bits in both English and Spanish here, whereby you need to select “View All Downloads” to see the “Spanish - Quick Reference Guidance” download package. Check out this post to see a list of other languages that will be available for various guidance in the near future. Also, check out this post for a list of all guidance provided by the Visual Studio ALM Rangers.
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18 Jun 2010

WCF Load Test (Beta) for Visual Studio 2010

ALM Rangers, Utilities, Visual Studio
The Visual Studio ALM Rangers have released an update to the WCF Load Test Tool.  Apart from some bug fixes, the main difference is that this version integrates with Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Edition.  After this release, the Rangers plan to convert the code to the .NET Framework 4.0, so future releases will only work with Visual Studio 2010 or later. If you’re not familiar with the WCF Load Test Tool, here’s a quick description: This tool takes a WCF trace file and a WCF client proxy, or a WCF interface contract, and generates a unit test that replays the…
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