Tarun Arora - Visual Studio ALM MVP

Book Review-Instant Team Foundation Server 2012 and Project Server 2010 Integration How-to

Tarun Arora [Microsoft MVP] — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 12:15:00 GMT

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/TarunArora/archive/2013/04/13/book-review-instant-team-foundation-server-2012-and-project-server-2010.aspx

Last week I was tasked with setting up Integration between Team Foundation Server 2012 and Project Server 2010. Being new to project server I started searching around for guidance online, I came across the book ‘Instant Team Foundation Server 2012 and Project Server 2010 Integration How-to’ by Gary P. Gauvin. The book has 60 pages of guidance you can instantly apply to plan, set up, and configure Team Foundation Server Extensions for Project Server. Step-by-step instructions are also provided with enough detail to get you started without burdening you with a ton of background information. It doesn’t just end there, the book also talks about best practices for managing the integration once its set up.

Though MSDN has useful guidance on project server integration, but the book summarises the License & CAL specifications, Authentication Modes, Permission Management and management SQL scripts all in one place apart from the installation and set up steps making it easy for you to get to when required. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone looking for guidance on setting up and managing Team Foundation 2012 integration with Project Server 2010 without getting overloaded with too much information. In case you are interested, ‘Instant Team Foundation Server 2012 and Project Server 2010 Integration How-to’ is a good value for money, available on PACKT and Amazon for purchase.

Happy Reading :-]

Cheers,

Tarun

TFS Service - Configure Source and Symbol Server Settings

Tarun Arora [Microsoft MVP] — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 14:23:00 GMT

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/TarunArora/archive/2013/04/07/tfs-service---configure-source-and-symbol-server-settings.aspx

I don’t think I need to call out the importance of Indexing Source Symbols, in case you need a reminder read the benefits of symbols here. Recently I wrote a blog post on the Microsoft ALM blog describing the improvements made to the Visual Studio debugger, this also improves the overall user debugging experience. TFS Service doesn’t index the source symbols, of course if you think this would be a cool feature, please vote for this feature request here. TFS Service build engine however, gives you the option to specify a file share to index the symbols. This file share however, needs to have a public endpoint for the TFS Service to write to it. There isn’t any guidance available on how you can configure such a public share and associate it with TFS Service.

In this blog post, I’ll show you how to use Windows Azure to set up a File Server with a public endpoint and associate that with the TFS Service build to index symbol servers. We’ll also cover how you can consume these symbols from with in Visual Studio while debugging.

Let’s get started…

01 – Create a public File Server using Windows Azure

Utilize the following procedure to configure a Windows Azure Virtual Machine (VM) instance for use as a File Server.

Create the File Server VM instance (e.g. “MyFileServer.cloudapp.net”) using the Windows Azure portal. See reference instructions here.
Attach and format a blob-storage hosted data-disk to the VM.
Using the Server Manager Console, enable the File Server Role.

Create a File Share folder (e.g. “Symbols”) on the attached data-disk and enable read/write access for Everyone.

Add two endpoints to the VM for both TCP port 445 and UDP port 445.

Disable username & password – Go to network and sharing center, go to advanced settings and disable Password Protect Sharing (details here).

Note – You will encounter the following error in TFS service in case you do not set ‘Turn off Password protect sharing’.

SYMSTORE ERROR: Class: Server. Desc: Couldn't connect to server. Error 1326: Logon failure: unknown user name or bad password.
TF270015: 'symstore.exe' returned an unexpected exit code. Expected '0'; actual '1326'. See the build logs for more details.

02 – Associating the File Server with TFS Service

Create a new build or edit an existing build definition and open the Process Tab, look out for the Source and Symbol Server Setting. Enter the Public IP address of the VM followed by the File Share name. For example in our case the File Share name is “Symbols” and the IP address of the machine “myFileSever.cloudapp.net” is 168.63.9.211, so the network share path becomes \\168.63.9.211\Symbols

Trigger the build and you’ll see that the symbols are now being indexed at the said location. Let’s look at the TFS Service build log.

Also, let’s also look at the contents of the folder where the symbols have been published.

So, now that the symbols from our TFS Service elastic build are successfully indexing in our Windows Azure File Share, let’s look at how these symbols can be consumed from with in Visual Studio while debugging.

03 – Debugging with Visual Studio

To get Symbol support while debugging in Visual Studio, you need to configure the below settings in Visual Studio.

Go to Tools –> Options –> Debugging –> Symbols. Here you need to specify the network share where the symbols have been dropped by the build.

Go to Tools –> Options –> Debugging –> General. Here you need to enable source server support, additional options have been added, choose if they apply to your use case.

In Summary, no excuses for not indexing the symbols from the builds executed using the elastic build on TFS Service…

I hope you find this blog post useful… If you have any feedback please feel free to leave a comment. Thank you for taking the time out and reading this blog post. If you enjoyed the post, remember to subscribe to http://feeds.feedburner.com/TarunArora. Stay tuned!

Presenting at TechEd 2013-TechDays 2013 India ALM Track

Tarun Arora [Microsoft MVP] — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 19:34:00 GMT

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/TarunArora/archive/2013/03/11/presenting-at-teched-2013-techdays-2013-india-alm-track.aspx

I’ll be presenting at TechEd and TechDays in India, there is a lot to look forward to as the events will be hosted across India. Bangalore will be hosting TechEd on 18-19th March, Delhi will be hosting TechDays on 22nd March and Pune will host its maiden TechEd on 25-26 March. The session line up across all location and technology tracks is very impressive. There are a lot of famous personalities presenting the key notes.

What is TechEd and why should you bother?

TechEd is Microsoft’s premier technology conference for IT professionals and developers, offering the most comprehensive technical education across Microsoft's current suite of products, solutions, tools, and services.

Microsoft TechEd India 2013 is here. And it just got better! Besides Bengaluru, the industry - leading event makes its debut in Pune this year.

If you are developing, deploying, managing, securing, and mobilizing Microsoft solutions, TechEd is your opportunity to focus on the key technology and business issues that will help you solve today's real-world IT challenges and prepare you for tomorrow's innovations.

Join us to reimagine your future!

What on in the ALM track at TechEd India this year?

Complete details about Session line up across the technology tracks can be found here https://india.msteched.com/#techtrack

The ALM track,

From Dev to Test to Operations: Continuous Feedback with Visual Studio 2012
Agile Testing in Visual Studio 2012
Developer Collaboration with Visual Studio 2012
Testing and Debugging SharePoint applications with Visual Studio 2012
Modeling Agile software development practices using TFS 2012

Why should you attend my session? - “Modeling Agile software development practices using TFS 2012”

Software development organizations are embracing Agile in a big way. But why? Most certainly it allows a higher rate of success, encourages better collaboration, use of tools and does a better job embracing change. In this demo-packed session, learn how to use TFS 2012 to plan, build and deliver Software in a lean fashion while keeping customer and quality at the heart of everything.

At the end of the session you will walk away with,

What’s causing a change in the IT trends
Short comings of waterfall
The business case for Agile
How the tooling in TFS lends it self to Agile processes

Let’s catch up

Will you be at any of these venues? I would love to catch up…

Hope to see you there!

Cheers,

Tarun

Notes Upgrading To Visual Studio 2012 Update 2 Ctp4

Tarun Arora [Microsoft MVP] — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 00:24:00 GMT

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/TarunArora/archive/2013/03/11/notes-upgrading-to-visual-studio-2012-update-2-ctp4.aspx

List of Software on TFS Service Hosted Build

Tarun Arora [Microsoft MVP] — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 01:26:00 GMT

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/TarunArora/archive/2013/03/08/list-of-software-on-tfs-service-hosted-build.aspx

A couple of weeks back I had posted a blog post on getting a list of software installed on the build agent by simply customizing the build process template. Building on top of the same solution, I have created a website “http://listofsoftwareontfshostedbuildserver.azurewebsites.net/” which gets updated once every day with the list of software installed on the TFS hosted build server.

In this blogpost, I’ll show you how I have implemented this solution, but first a screen shot of what information the website carries,

The name of the software installed on the TFS Service hosted build
The version of the install on the TFS Service hosted build
The Publisher of the software installed on the TFS Service hosted build
When that software was installed on the TFS Service hosted build
A link to help documentation

The Implementation

The implementation is fairly straight forward,

1. Configure the build process template to run power shell script http://geekswithblogs.net/TarunArora/archive/2013/02/03/tfs---get-list-of-software-installed-on-build-agent.aspx

2. Create a SQL Azure database and add a table SoftwareDeployed, at the very basic level, the table should carry these columns,

3. Change the powershell script to import sql ps snapins, store the results of the powershell query in the sql database

$ErrorActionPreference = "Stop"

$sqlpsreg="HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PowerShell\1\ShellIds\Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.PowerShell.sqlps"

if (Get-ChildItem $sqlpsreg -ErrorAction "SilentlyContinue")
{
    throw "SQL Server Provider for Windows PowerShell is not installed."
}
else
{
    $item = Get-ItemProperty $sqlpsreg
    $sqlpsPath = [System.IO.Path]::GetDirectoryName($item.Path)
}


#
# Set mandatory variables for the SQL Server provider
#
Set-Variable -scope Global -name SqlServerMaximumChildItems -Value 0
Set-Variable -scope Global -name SqlServerConnectionTimeout -Value 30
Set-Variable -scope Global -name SqlServerIncludeSystemObjects -Value $false
Set-Variable -scope Global -name SqlServerMaximumTabCompletion -Value 1000

#
# Load the snapins, type data, format data
#
Push-Location
cd $sqlpsPath
Add-PSSnapin SqlServerCmdletSnapin100
Add-PSSnapin SqlServerProviderSnapin100
Update-TypeData -PrependPath SQLProvider.Types.ps1xml 
update-FormatData -prependpath SQLProvider.Format.ps1xml 
Pop-Location

$db_server = "ReplaceWithYourTargetDbName.database.windows.net"
$tblSoftwareDetail = "SoftwareDetail"
$username = "dbUserName"
$pwd = "dbPassword

# First, clear existing table
$sql_query_del = "Delete from $tblSoftwareDetail"
Invoke-Sqlcmd -ServerInstance $db_server -Database $db -Username $username -Password $pwd -Query $sql_query_del

# Get list of software installed on the build server
gp HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\* | Select DisplayName, DisplayVersion, Publisher,

InstallDate, HelpLink, UninstallString | foreach {
    $name = $_.DisplayName
    $version = $_.DisplayVersion
    $publisher = $_.Publisher
    $installDate = $_.InstallDate
    $helplink = $_.HelpLink
    $uninstallLink = $_.UninstallString
    Write-Host " Display Name: $name, Version: $version, Publisher: $publisher, InstallDate: $installDate,

Helplink: $helplink, UninstallLink: $uninstallLink"

    $sql_query = "INSERT INTO $tblSoftwareDetail (Name, Version, Publisher, InstallDate, Helplink, Uninstall)

VALUES ('$name', '$version', '$publisher', '$installDate', '$helplink', '$uninstallLink')"
    Invoke-Sqlcmd -ServerInstance $db_server -Database $db -Username $username -Password $pwd -Query $sql_query
}

4. Configure the build to run on a daily schedule to ensure that the software repository list stays up to date.

5. Create a windows azure website and publish a simple website to surface this information to the UI.

http://listofsoftwareontfshostedbuildserver.azurewebsites.net/

I hope you find this blog post… If you have any feedback please feel free to leave a comment. Thank you for taking the time out and reading this blog post. If you enjoyed the post, remember to subscribe to http://feeds.feedburner.com/TarunArora. Stay tuned!

Power Shell Analysing Emails Trends

Tarun Arora [Microsoft MVP] — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 23:41:00 GMT

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/TarunArora/archive/2013/03/03/power-shell-analysing-emails-trends.aspx

I promised my friend Chuck that I would post the Power Shell script to get the list of most discussed topics and the tops writers in an email distribution list. Generally there are loads of emails that fly around on the ALM Champs and ALM Rangers distribution list. It is interesting to analyse what are the most discussed topics are and who are the most active participants. More details on the objective here on Chuck’s blog.

So, here we go, the powershell script below will give you the following output,

Return a count of emails by subject
Return a count of emails by sender

The PowerShell Script

Clear-Host
$FolderToAnalyse = "ALM Champs"
$ReceivedAfter = "1/Mar/2013"

# Access Outlook using Powershell
$GetOutlook = New-Object -com "Outlook.Application";
$olName = $GetOutlook.GetNamespace("MAPI")

# Get All folders
$olxEmailFolder = $olName.GetDefaultFolder(‘olFolderInbox’)

ForEach($Folder in $olxEmailFolder.Folders)
{        
    # Analyse the folder of choice
    if($Folder.Name -eq $FolderToAnalyse)
    {
        # Filter to emails for the specified period
        $emails = $Folder.Items | Where-Object {$_.ReceivedTime -gt $ReceivedAfter}
        
        # Group Email by Subject and output in descending order
        $emails | Select Subject | Group-Object Subject -NoElement | Sort-Object Count -Descending | ogv

        # Top Writers
        $emails | Select SenderName | Group-Object SenderName -NoElement | Sort-Object Count -Descending | ogv
    }
}

Write-Output Completed

Explanation

You can pass the name of the outlook folder you would like to analyze using the variable $FolderToAnalyse, the date from which you would like to analyse emails can be specified in the variable $ReceivedAfter.
Essentially the script is pulling a list of all outlook folders and selecting the folder you passed in the variable $FolderToAnalyse, it narrows down the emails in this folder to the date period specified by you in the variable $ ReceivedAfter.
Pipe the shortlisted emails to group by the email subject. Pass the object to the powershell grid view for output.
Pipe the shortlisted emails to group by the sender name. Pass the object to the powershell grid view for output.
Notice that I am using -NoElement with Group-Object, reason, I don’t want the group by output to be printed in an additional column, using the -NoElement switch omits this from the grid view.

Output

As you run the script, you might be prompted by Outlook to allow access by PowerShell to your outlook folder in question. Choose Allow and you should see two separate grids pop up with the output of most discussed emails and top contributors. Since this is the PowerShell grid view, you can use the filter menu to reduce the noise by specifying a filter.

You can not only filter but also export the results out. Learn more about the capabilities of the Powershell out grid view.

Hope you find it useful! :-]

Cheers,

Tarun

Continuous Integration-Automated Deployments And Release Management

Tarun Arora [Microsoft MVP] — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 01:14:00 GMT

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/TarunArora/archive/2013/02/23/continuous-integration-automated-deployments-and-release-management.aspx

A customer I am working with is interested in an ‘automated deployment and release management’ solution for their 160 applications scaling across 350 servers. There is a mix of Microsoft and Non Microsoft applications, some server based some desktop based, some are currently deployed using bat files, PowerShell, others require Unix/Perl scripts for deployment. I have used TFS Deployer very successfully in the past and put that forward as a recommendation, however, this customer is keen on an enterprise supported ‘automated deployment’ solution.

The requirement is quite straightforward,

The ability to trigger the deployment from with in Build Workflow OR Build Explorer OR from a UNC
The ability to create a release pipeline specifying environment(s), pre-requisites, sign off(s)
Release management capabilities such as track & notify releases in calendar view
Integration with ticket management & helpdesk systems
A dashboard to track & manage the deployment process
The ability to successfully repeat this process to deploy continuously

Microsoft currently does not have an offering in the automated deployment and release management space. Microsoft has however helped create an ecosystem of automated deployment tools by providing ample of hooks and a rich API to interact with TFS.

Comparing Release Management & Automated Deployment Offerings

In the table below I have captured details of products offering release management and automated deployment capabilities. Below is *just my* assessment of these products. If you have experience using these products, please feel free to share more information in the comments section.

Name	Pros	Cons	Database Deployment	Source Code Available	Config Mgmt	API Access	Cost
Nolio Zero Touch Deployment	Integrates with TFS Cloud/Premise 2010, 2012 (Recognises build quality change & build completion event) Allows deployment on premise, cloud, physical & virtual servers Supports .NET & Java Prebuilt IT Service Management dashboard to track & manage end to end releases (Web dashboard) Automated triggers and release decisions Tagging snapshots for faster rollback Release monitoring and analytics Release calendar Approval gates Native .NET applications support Seamless integration with 3rd party tools: Build and Release Management, Monitoring, QA, SCCM, CMDB, Ticketing and Help Desk Provides integrations with a number of build tools including Hudson/Jenkins, JetBrains TeamCity, Microsoft TFS/TeamBuild Release all type of components such as .NET, BizTalk, SharePoint, MSI, NuGet, etc	Cost Release information stored in an xml manifest file	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Pricing per deployment agent
InCycle Software - InRelease	Integrates with TFS Premise 2010, 2012 Desktop & Web Client to manage & track release management Pull based security mechanism Config transformations are stored in database instead of config file Allows connecting with multiple TFS Servers to assemble an application deployment Security does not need to be maintained separately, Leverages existing TFS Security groups Build & Release using TFS Labels Integration with MTM to execute automated tests Release all type of components such as .NET, BizTalk, SharePoint, etc Allows Approver workflow Deployment Infrastructure monitoring via dashboard Release analysis & monitoring Release all type of components such as .NET, BizTalk, SharePoint, MSI, NuGet, etc Free subscription for Microsoft MVP(s) & RD(s)	Limited release management capabilities such as release calendar Limited integration with 3rd party ticketing & helpdesk tools such as service now Does not provide out of the box integration with non TFS build systems such as Team City, Jenkins, etc Does not support cross platform deployments such as Java.	Yes	No		Yes	Pricing per deployment agent
Urban Code Deploy - uDeploy	Release Process automation using Graphical editor Supports cross platform deployments such as Java, .NET and few legacy platforms. An advanced release rollback mechanism that supports replace with last deployed or rollback of incremental deployments. Integrates with TFS and non Microsoft build engines Approval workflow Calendar view: schedule future releases Manage & Monitor releases via release dashboard Role based security, supports LDAP authentication Deploy to on-premise or off-premise Promote releases between dev, staging and production environments Environment Management DB/Configuration Microsoft's NuGet packaging format Release all type of components such as .NET, BizTalk, SharePoint, MSI, NuGet, etc	Cost & Setup Limited integration with 3rd party ticketing & helpdesk tools such as service now	Yes	Yes (At a price)	Yes	Yes	Pricing per deployment agent
Jenkins	TFS Integration Web Dashboard Many Plugins Runs on Many Envs (Unix/Windows/Etc)	No config management Weak release management plugins	Yes – Via plugins (ie DbDeploy)	Yes	No	Yes	Free/Open Source
JobScheduler	Web Based Job Scheduling	No TFS Integration No Env configuration Generic job scheduler as opposed to a deployment tool	Yes (with appropriate jobs)	Yes	No	Yes	Free/Open Source
Octopus Deploy	Integrates with TFS (on premise & cloud) Deploy to your own servers, on-premise or off-premise Promote releases between dev, staging and production environments Web Dashboard Integrates with other build management solutions such as Team City Very easy to set up and configure Not very expensive	Requires Octopus specifc NuGet packages for deployment Limited Release management functionality Limited integration with 3rd party ticketing & helpdesk tools such as service now Does not support cross platform deployments such as Java	Yes	Yes (At a cost)	No	Yes	Enterprise License
Redgate Deployment Manager	Deploy to on-premise or off-premise Promote releases between dev, staging and production environments Web Dashboard	No Integration with TFS Limited integration with 3rd party ticketing & helpdesk tools such as service now Almost no release management provisions No integration with TFS or other build systems Limited integration with 3rd party ticketing & helpdesk tools such as service now Does not support cross platform deployments such as Java	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Pricing per deployment agent
Attunity Application Release Automation	Multiple O/S Support WinX, Unix & Linux Comprehensive .NET and IIS deployment management Integration with Team Foundation Server 2010 Connector for seamless "Build-Deploy" Package Deployments for MSI's, etc. Real-time, scheduled, or on-demand job execution Job Delegation to Users or Groups with access via intuitive Web UI Extensive API for integration with IT & Business processes Auto & One-click Rollback of Apps, Content & Configurations Job and process chaining Include/Exclude Filters Go live automation controls for network-wide production releases Automated deployment and transformation of web.config and other xml files across different targets Auditing & Reporting of processes for regulatory compliance & risk management SSL Encryption, Authentication & Security Proxy Mechanism LAN, WAN & Large File Transfer Engine	Limited integration with 3rd party ticketing & helpdesk tools such as service now Almost no release management provisions No integration with TFS or other build systems Limited integration with 3rd party ticketing & helpdesk tools such as service now	Partially	No		Yes	Pricing per deployment agent

If you had experience using any of these products, please feel free to add comments to share your experience.

Hope this helps!

Tarun

ALM Mag – Harnessing the cloud for Performance Testing

Tarun Arora [Microsoft MVP] — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 22:16:00 GMT

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/TarunArora/archive/2013/02/19/alm-mag-ndash-harnessing-the-cloud-for-performance-testing.aspx

Recently my blog post ‘Leveraging the cloud for Performance Testing’ got featured in the ALM Mag Vol. 1 Issue 1 – January 2013.

Figure 1 – Visual Studio Load Testing using Windows Azure – featured in ALM Mag Vol. 1 Issue 1 – Jan 2013

Download the full article from here.

What is ALM Mag?

In case you haven’t come across ALM Magazine, it is an eMagazine for ALM, DevOps, Lifecycle Processes, TFS, Testing, Configuration Management and Deployment.

Figure 2 – What is ALM Mag, find out more at www.almmag.com

ALM Mag will feature articles from the best and the brightest in the industry who will share their knowledge expertise and experiences. This knowledge will come in the form of: Whitepapers, Study results, Blog, How To, Step-by-Step and Top Tip articles. The contributors will provide Reviews of Primary Tools and Third Party Integrated or Bridging Tools as new versions are released. They will also provide reviews of relevant Books and community related Events.

Periodically, ALM Mag will invite you to participate in Surveys to learn your areas of community participation so we might address those interests and also importantly, to help gauge how the magazine is doing at covering what you want to see.

Several times each year the magazine will feature industry leaders and evangelists from the ALM, DevOps, Agile, TFS and Testing community, on the cover accompanying an interview inside the issue.

Magazines in an electronic format afford several advantages, allowing the embedding of links to streaming video and audio such as recorded Webinars and Podcasts along with video seminars or Courseware, Tutorials and Training. ALM Mag will also provide a Calendar and information about upcoming Events and a valuable Resource section.

Lastly, as we all need a little humour once in a while… ALM Mag will feature IT Humour and Cartoons to give a moment of levity.

This content will be provided by different contributors in each issue. ALM Mag may break and present larger bodies of work as parts over several issues but the general intent is not to have regular columns. The intent is always to keep each issue new, fresh, valuable and relevant.

Who is running the show?

A shout out to Keith Denham who has conceptualized => created the ALM Magazine. The advisory board includes some leading personalities in the ALM space.

Figure 3 – ALM Mag Advisory Panel

Do you want to contribute or receive?

If you are interested in contributing to the ALM magazine, follow the guidelines and submission process here.
ALM Mag is currently offering a discounted annual subscription, I would encourage you to take advantage and enrol here.

Upgrading to Visual Studio 2012 Update 2 CTP3

Tarun Arora [Microsoft MVP] — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 23:54:00 GMT

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/TarunArora/archive/2013/02/17/upgrading-to-visual-studio-2012-update-2-ctp3.aspx

Last week I upgraded my TFS 2012 test environment to CTP3 to try out the new features rolled out in preview as part of the Visual Studio 2012 Upgrade 2 CTP. In this blog post, I’ll walk you through the steps required to upgrade, you may find the quick notes in each section useful if you don’t have the time to read through the complete blog post.

TFS Application Tier
TFS Build Controller/Agent
TFS Test Controller/Agent
Developer Workstation
SharePoint extensions

What is Visual Studio 2012 Upgrade 2 CTP 3 and where can I get it?

Read about the new features included in Upgrade 2 CTP 3.
Download the Visual Studio 2012 Upgrade 2 CTP 3.

Visual Studio 2012 Update 2 CTP 3 – Statement of Support:

PLEASE NOTE: Technology Previews have not been subject to final validation and are not meant to be run on production workstations or servers. Since installation of Visual Studio CTPs and installation of Team Foundation Server CTPs work differently, please read the recommended upgrade approach for each product carefully.

For Visual Studio: The recommended approach for upgrading Visual Studio on developer workstations is installing the latest Visual Studio Update CTP on top of an RTM release or a previous CTP build of that Update. Visual Studio CTPs can be upgraded to a different build.
For Team Foundation Server: Do not install a Team Foundation Server Update CTP on a production server, as it will put the server in an unsupported state. Unlike with Visual Studio CTPs, installing a Team Foundation Server CTP fully replaces the current release on the server with the CTP. Team Foundation Server CTPs cannot be upgraded to future CTPs or releases nor “downgraded” to a previous release.

Sandcastle – My Test Environment

Figure 1 – Sandcastle topology

TFS 2012 Application Tier – Windows Server 2012, current patch version Dev11.Update1

2. TFS 2012 Build Controller/Agent – Windows Server 2012, current patch version Dev11.Update1

3. TFS 2012 Test Controller/Agent – Windows Server 2012, current patch version Dev11.Update1

4. SharePoint 2010 – Windows Server 2012, current patch version Dev11

5. SQL Server 2012, SQL Server Analysis Server 2012 – Windows Server 2012, current patch version Dev11

Upgrading TFS 2012 Application Tier to Visual Studio 2012 Update 2 CTP 3

While the detailed walkthrough is given below, a few quick notes,

The TFS Service account details are not automatically picked up and need to be hand entered, it is advised that you keep the tfs service account details handy
The TFS database name will not be picked up and will need to be hand entered
If you have the ‘Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2012 Update 1 Power Tool’ installed and decide to check ‘Configure Scheduled Backups using the existing Backup and Restore Power Tools settings’ the validation before the upgrade will fail
The backup scheduled configured from your previous set up will be lost during the upgrade
If you do not uninstall the ‘Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2012 Update 1 Power Tool’ from the Application Tier you will continue to get the exception ‘TF257007: An error occurred while the following management extension for Team Foundation was being loaded. C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2012 Power Tools\Database Backup Tools\\Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Power.Tools.Admin.dll. Fore more information, review the logs in the Logs node of the administration console.’ every time you open the TFS Admin Console on the Application Tier.
The Application Tier upgrade will NOT require a restart before or after the upgrade

Details

1. The previous upgrade path of my test environment has been Team Foundation Server 2012 RTM => Team Foundation Server 2012 Update 1

2. Navigate to the Visual Studio 2012 Update 2 official download page and download ‘VS2012_2_CTP_TFS_Full_ENU.iso’

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36539

3. Once the download has completed, mount the iso and double click tfs_server.exe

4. You will get the standard installer, as you are already aware CTP’s aren’t meant for production environments and don’t have a defined upgrade path. Click accept terms and continue

5. Accept the License terms and start the upgrade

6. The upgrade takes roughly 7-10 minutes

7. Once the installer completes you will be redirected to the upgrade wizard. Click Next to continue with the upgrade

8. Enter the SQL Server Instance name

9. You will need to enter the Account name and password of your tfs service account, click the test hyperlink to validate the credentials

10. Continue to configure reporting services, if you don’t have reporting services in your setup, uncheck and continue.

11. Click ‘Populate URLs’ to bring back the currently configured reporting services url.

12. The wizard will detect the SQL instance name that your application tier currently uses

13. The wizard will pick up the Analysis server name your current set up is configured to

14. The TFS Reporting service account needs to be entered and is not picked up automagically from your last configuration

15. Click next to configure SharePoint, you can optionally skip and configure this later

16. Click the test hyperlink to validate the SharePoint URLs

17. If you have the ‘Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2012 Update xx Power Tool’ installed, you will get the Configure Scheduled Backups screen.

Note If you have the option ‘Configure Scheduled Backups using the existing Backup and Restore Power Tools settings’ the validation will fail on the validation page in the upgrade wizard. The only way to progress with the installation is to uncheck the ‘Configure Scheduled Backups using the existing Backup and Restore Power Tools settings’.

18. Summary of the configuration selected by you.

19. Validate and you will run into the below errors if you did not uncheck ‘Configure Scheduled Backups using the existing Backup and Restore Power Tools settings’

You may see the below in the upgrade log file…

[Info   @16:52:40.223] +-+-+-+-+-| Running VerifyPowerToolInputs: Verifying the Backup Power Tool settings are valid |+-+-+-+-+-
[Info   @16:52:40.224]
[Info   @16:52:40.224] +-+-+-+-+-| Verifying the Backup Power Tool settings are valid |+-+-+-+-+-
[Info   @16:52:40.224] Starting Node: PTINPUTS
[Info   @16:52:40.224] NodePath : VINPUTS/Conditional/Container/Progress/PTINPUTS
[Info   @16:52:40.229] Node returned: Error
[Error @16:52:40.235] The Backup and Restore Power Tool settings discovered on this machine are invalid. Configuration of scheduled backups cannot proceed. To continue with configuration of Team Foundation Server you must uncheck the option to configure scheduled backups. After Team Foundation Server is configured you can run the Scheduled Backups wizard from the Administration Console to enable scheduled backups.
[Info   @16:52:40.236] Completed VerifyPowerToolInputs: Error
[Info   @16:52:40.236] -----------------------------------------------------
[Info   @16:52:40.240] Execution results:
[Info   @16:52:40.240] Overall result: Failure
[Info   @16:52:40.240] Nodes completed: 76
[Info   @16:52:40.240] Nodes succeeded: 73
[Info   @16:52:40.240] Nodes skipped: 22
[Info   @16:52:40.240] Nodes with errors: 1
[Info   @16:52:40.240] Nodes with warnings: 0
[Info   @16:52:40.240] Number of error messages: 1
[Info   @16:52:40.240] Number of warning messages: 0
[Info   @16:52:40.240] Number of info messages: 2

20. Uncheck ‘Configure Scheduled Backups using the existing Backup and Restore Power Tools settings’ and rerun the validation

21. If all goes to plan, you will get an all green after the upgrade

22. The upgrade progress should indicate Success

23. If you have the Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2012 Update 1 Power Tool installed on the Application Tier you will see the exception message ‘TF257007: An error occured while the following management extension for Team Foundation was being loaded. C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2012 Power Tools\Database Backup Tools\\Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Power.Tools.Admin.dll. Fore more information, review the logs in the Logs node of the administration console.’ every time you open the TFS Administration console. Uninstall the Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2012 Update 1 Power Tools from the application tier to fix this exception.

24. The upgrade of the application tier to Visual Studio 2012 Update 2 is complete!

Upgrading TFS 2012 Build Controller & Agent to Visual Studio 2012 Update 2 CTP 3

While the detailed walkthrough is given below, a few quick notes,

The Team Project Collection to associate with the build service will not be automatically picked from the existing configuration and has to be specified again
The TFS Build Service account details are not automatically picked up and need to be hand entered, it is advised that you keep the service account details handy
The upgrade will require a restart on the build controller after the upgrade

Details

1. Navigate to the Visual Studio 2012 Update 2 official download page and download ‘VS2012_2_CTP_TFS_Full_ENU.iso’

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36539

2. Once the download has completed, mount the iso and double click tfs_server.exe

3. You will get the standard installer, as you are already aware CTP’s aren’t meant for production environments and don’t have a defined upgrade path. Click accept terms and continue

4. Accept the License terms and start the upgrade

5. The upgrade takes roughly 7-10 minutes

6. Once the installation completes, you will be redirected to the upgrade wizard. Click on the ‘Configure Team Foundation Build Service’ to configure build services on this box.

7. Click next to start the configuration of build services

8. The team project collection the build service was previously associated to is not picked up from the existing set up and has to be specified during the upgrade.

9. The existing build controller and agent set ups are picked up and you are given the option to associate them with the upgrade. Clicking NO allows you to change this.

10. Enter the service account details for the build service, optionally click the test hyperlink to validate the credentials.

11. Validate the configuration

12. Upgrade

13. Upgraded successfully

14. Close the wizard

15. Open up TFS Admin console and you can see that the version of the upgrade shows up to indicate that the build server is now Upgrade 2 CTP3 now

16. Click on ‘Build Configuration’ and you should be able to see the list of build controllers and agents you had before the upgrade.

Upgrading TFS 2012 Test Controller & Agent to Visual Studio 2012 Update 2 CTP 3

While the detailed walkthrough is given below, a few quick notes,

The Team Project Collection to associate with the test controller will not be automatically picked from the existing configuration and has to be specified again
The TFS Test Service account details are not automatically picked up and need to be hand entered, it is advised that you keep the service account details handy
The upgrade will require a restart on the test controller after the upgrade

Details

1. Navigate to the Visual Studio 2012 Update 2 official download page and download ‘VS2012_2_CTP_Agents_ENU.iso’

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36539

2. Once the download completes, mount the iso and navigate to the folder Test Controller and click on vstf_testcontroller.exe to start the upgrade

3. The upgrade takes less than 5 minutes to complete

4. You will be required to restart once the install completes

5. Now open up Configure Test Controller from windows, you will see the configuration window, the previously configured details are not picked up and need to be specified again

6. Specify the test service account and the team project collection URL, you may optionally specify the lab management service account details as well

7. Click Apply Settings, if the details are correct, you will get an all green screen. Click close to exit the wizard.

8. Now navigate to the folder Test Agent and run vstf_testagent.exe to start the upgrade

3. The upgrade takes less than 5 minutes to complete. Click Launch to configure the test agent after installation.

4. The previous settings of the test agent will not be picked up after the upgrade and need to be specified.

5. You will need to specify the test service account and the details of the test controller

6. Click Apply to apply the settings. You will be required to restart the machine after the test configuration has completed.

Upgrading Developer Machine to Visual Studio 2012 Update 2 CTP 3

While the detailed walkthrough is given below, a few quick notes,

The upgrade will require a restart on the developer workstation after the upgrade

Details

1. Navigate to the Visual Studio 2012 Update 2 official download page and download ‘vsupdate_KB2707250.exe’

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36539

2. Once the download completes, mount the installer and click setup to start the upgrade. The upgrade takes about 15 minutes to complete and you’ll be required to restart the developer machine once the installation completes.

Upgrading SharePoint server to Visual Studio 2012 Update 2 CTP 3

The upgrade does not require anything to be run on the SharePoint servers.

Hope you found this useful…

Please leave a comment if you have run into a problem or have feedback?

Cheers,

Tarun

How to backup the TFS 2012 databases

Tarun Arora [Microsoft MVP] — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 18:28:00 GMT

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/TarunArora/archive/2013/02/16/how-to-backup-the-tfs-2012-databases.aspx

Team Foundation Server Backups - You need to install the ‘Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2012 Update xx Power Tool’ on the application-tier for Team Foundation Server. The tool can schedule backups for the following databases that your deployment of Team Foundation Server uses:

the configuration database
the database for each team project collection
the databases that Team Foundation Server uses in conjunction with SharePoint Products, if your deployment includes integration with SharePoint Products
the databases that Team Foundation Server uses in conjunction with SQL Server Reporting Services, if your deployment includes reports
By using the restore wizard included with this tool, you can restore your entire deployment to new hardware, or selectively restore team project collections to an earlier point in time.

Note – There is a backup and restore power tool available for Team Foundation Server 2012. The current release of the power tool can be found here. Manually configuring backups is also possible, If your organization has a policy which stops you from installing the TFS power tool on the TFS application tier then you might benefit from the step by step of how to configure the backup of your TFS database, this has been very well documented on the Visual Studio MSDN site.

Prerequisites

The three prerequisites for setting up the Backup using the Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2012 Update xx Power Tools are,

The Network Path: You need to set up a network path which is accessible from your TFS Administration console and the account that will be logging in to TFS Application Tier to configure the Backups should have modify permissions on this folder. The TFS database instance service account also needs to have modify permissions on this share. I will be using the network share \\WIN2K12TFSBTCON\TfsDbBackup

The TFS Database Instance Name: You need to know the TFS Database Instance, you can find this out by looking at the TFS Administration console section ‘Data Tier Summary’ on the TFS Application Tier. I will be using ‘Win2k12SQL12’ as the database instance in this blog post.

The TFS Database instance Service Instance: You should ideally use the TFS database instance service account. If you don’t know what it is, you can log on to the database server and look at the identity the SQL Server service is running under. I will be using ‘Sandcastle\svc12sqlservice’ in the blog post.

Let’s get started…

1. Download the Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2012 Update 1 Power Tool from here

http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/b1ef7eb2-e084-4cb8-9bc7-06c3bad9148f

2. Launch the Installer for the Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2012 Update 1 Power Tool,

3. If you don’t have Visual Studio 2012 or Visual Studio 2012 Team Explorer installed on the TFS AT, you will not be take advantage of the below listed features that the Power tool offers, you *don’t* however need to install either Visual Studio 2012 or Team Explorer 2012 to set up TFS database backups.

4. Choose Custom installation mode

5. Database Backup Tool is of main interest to us, you can disable the other 2 if you don’t want to install them on the TFS Application Tier

6. Click Next to start the installation

7. Click finish to close the set up once it completes

8. You will notice a new addition ‘Database Backup Tools’ added to your TFS Administration Console. Click on it and from the right pane choose ‘Create Backup Panel’

9. Enter a network backup Path where you would like the backups to be created. Enter the retention days based on the policy followed at your company. This fields accepts a value between 1 and 999 days.

10. The backups will be encrypted using the key for which you are required to provide a password that is at least 7 characters long and contains one uppercase letter, one lowercase letter and one number.

11. Enter the SQL server instance name and click ‘List Available Databases’ to see a full list of databases deployed on the instance. You can optionally choose to backup the SharePoint database as part of this backup plan.

12. I have selected the ‘TFS_Configuration’, ‘TFS_Warehouse’, ‘TFS_Mycollection’, ‘Master’, ‘Model’ and ‘Msdb’ database

13. Enter the details of the service account which is currently running the TFS SQL server instance service on your database server. Click on test to verify credential details.

14. Specify the email you would like the backup plan tool to send alert emails to in case the backup fails. If you decide to choose ‘No email alerts' then the failures are logged in the event logs instead.

15. You can select the backup plan that is most suitable to your needs.

Choose one from,

Manual backup – Suitable for smaller set ups

Nightly Full Schedule – Suitable for small to medium set ups

Advanced Schedules – Best for large set ups where you would like to enable a mix of full and incremental backups.

16. Press next to come to the summary page and click verify to go through the configurations and validate the steps before performing the setup

17. Validation!

18. Validation complete, choose ‘Create Plan’ to create the plan

19. When the plan creation successfully completes, you will be presented with the below screen.

20. Click Next and Close to close the wizard.

21. In the TFS Admin console I can see the plan settings.

22. If you had opted for Manual backup, you can click the ‘Take Full Backup Now’ link to trigger the backup

23. The backup process starts and you can see the progress in the window.

24. Open the network share specified in backup plan and notice the backups created by running the full back backup trigger from the administration console.

Caveats

During validation the steps are executed under the account currently logged into the Application Tier. In my case, it is currently Domain\Administration. This account does not have read/modify permissions on the network share and hence it fails the validation. The easy fix is to give the user Domain\Administrator Read/Modify permissions to the network share and click on re run readiness checks.

         TF254027: You must correct all error before you continue.

         Detailed Results:

         Fix: Error:“Account Domain\AccountName failed to create backups using path \\networkpath\folder”

2. You cannot backup and restore the tempdb using the backup power tool. If you try to backup or restore the tempdb using the backup tool you will run into the error

‘Backup and restore operations are not allowed on database tempdb.’

3. Recreating the backup plan will result in the warning ‘The following tasks exists and will be deleted: TfsDeleteOldBackup’, nothing to worry about, this is just an indication that the old backup plan created in the database will be deleted

Hope you found this useful…

Have you run into a problem or have feedback, please leave a comment.

Cheers,

Tarun