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Visual Studio Team System
With the next version of the Visual Studio development environment, Microsoft is launching Visual Studio Team Suite. This will deliver three new Editions of Visual Studio which, together with Team Foundation Server, will provide tools for managing the whole development lifecycle. Matt Nicholson introduces a major series of hands-on reviews by Ian Murphy, now updated for the Beta 2 release.
Author: Matt Nicholson
Last updated: Jul 2005
Despite the strength of Visual Studio and the .NET Framework, Microsoft’s attempts to move into the wider market of software design and process control, namely Visio and Visual SourceSafe, have not had much impact, allowing other companies such as IBM Rational, Compuware and Borland to fill the gaps. However all that is about to change. Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite (VSTS) is an audacious attempt to solve the problems presented by the software development lifecycle in a coherent and innovative manner, while still providing a platform on which others can build. At the core of VSTS is the Process Template. Here the project manager can define a whole set of parameters that determine how the team will operate, such as what tasks must be completed, how version control will work, the permissions allocated to each member of the team, and the guidance that will be available. The Process Template is stored in the Team Foundation Server and has a profound effect on the day-to-day running of the team. For example, policy settings can ensure that a developer cannot check code in until he or she has performed certain tests that have been defined using the Testers edition. Team Foundation Server provides the underlying services supporting project management and source code control, using SQL Server 2005 as a repository. Team Edition for Software Architects contains design and modelling tools. The general goal here is to make all elements of modelling, from software components to deployment, an integral part of the software process. Team Edition for Software Developers augments Visual Studio with a set of tools that encourage developers to carry out in-line testing of their applications. Users of the Developers edition can bring across class and application models from the Architects edition, as well as build their own. This is also the starting point for unit testing and code coverage test plans. Team Edition for Software Testers imports the unit testing and code coverage elements from the Developers edition, but also implements its own testing methodology and provides tools for creating and managing automated functional and load testing. You can also find out about upgrading to Visual Studio Team System from our article Moving to Visual Studio 2005, and about how third parties are extending Visual Studio Team System from our article on Extending Visual Studio Team System.
As will become apparent in Ian's reviews, VSTS can be seen as the fruit of a union between Visual Studio 2005 Professional, which replaces Visual Studio .NET 2003 Professional; SQL Server 2005, which supports the repository; Microsoft Solution Framework (MSF), which provides the underlying methodology; and Microsoft’s Dynamic Systems Initiative (DSI), which underlies the supporting metadata.
The suite is based around a number of roles that are vital to the smooth running of the software development process. Three of these roles get their own Edition within the suite, namely Visual Studio Team Edition for Software Architects, for Software Developers, and for Software Testers. Others are supported by the Team Foundation Server which provides repository, reporting, version control and project management services to the team.
This is the beginnings of a ‘software factory’, as discussed in our interview with Steve Cook.
Other innovations are to be found in the Architects edition. Here we find the Distributed System Designers which came out of the ‘Whitehorse’ project (see Tim Anderson’s interview with Keith Short). This set of tools help the architect not only design the components, classes and interfaces that make up the application, but also match them against the services that have been configured in the datacentre, as specified by the operations manager, and even create the necessary scripts and documentation to ensure the application can be successfully deployed.
So where does this leave companies that have built businesses around supplying modelling, management and testing tools for integration with Visual Studio? In fact the suite provides plenty of opportunities for extension. Third parties can integrate their tools into the various VSTS editions, as they have done before with Visual Studio. They can also integrate with Team Foundation Server itself, or deliver Process Templates that support new methodologies.
Perhaps the biggest challenge will be faced by existing change management vendors, as VSTS is firmly rooted into Team Foundation Server and SQL Server 2005. How they respond we have yet to see.
What we can say is that VSTS needs to be evaluated by anyone involved in team development for the Microsoft platform. We have therefore commissioned Ian Murphy to write the following hands-on reviews of the component parts of VSTS, as represented by the recently released Beta 2 version:
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Visual Studio Team Foundation Server Visual Studio Team Edition for Software Architects Visual Studio Team Edition for Software Developers Visual Studio Team Edition for Software Testers Extending Visual Studio Team System What's new in Visual Studio 2005
