Testing for Continuous Delivery with Visual Studio 2012

August 2012

Summary

As more software projects adopt a continuous delivery cycle, testing threatens to be the bottleneck in the process. Agile development frequently revisits each part of the source code, but every change requires a re-test of the product. While the skills of the manual tester are vital, purely manual testing can't keep up. Visual Studio 2012 provides many features that remove roadblocks in the testing and debugging process and also help speed up and automate re-testing.

This guide shows you how to:

• Create and use effective unit tests, load, and performance tests.
• Record and play back manual tests to reproduce bugs and verify the fixes.
• Transform manual tests into code to speed up re-testing.
• Understand how the lab environment works and how it supports a project.
• Monitor your project in terms of tests passed.
• Run build-deploy-test workflows on virtual lab environments.
• Evolve your testing process to satisfy the demands of agile and continuous delivery.

You'll learn how to set up all the tools you need for testing in Visual Studio 2012 and 2010, including Team Foundation Server, the build system, test controllers and agents, SCVMM and Hyper-V. Each chapter is structured so that you can move gradually from entry-level to advanced usage.

Authors and contributors

This guide was produced by the following individuals:

• Program and product management: Larry Brader (Microsoft Corporation)
• Writers: Alan Cameron Wills and Howie Hilliker (Microsoft Corporation)
• Subject matter experts: Anutthara Bharadwaj and Willy-Peter Schaub (Microsoft Corporation)
• Development and test: Larry Brader (Microsoft Corporation) and Poornimma Kaliappan (VanceInfo)
• Edit team: RoAnn Corbisier (Microsoft Corporation) and Nancy Michell (Content Master Ltd.)
• Cartoons: Paul Carew (Linda Werner & Associates Inc)
• Book design and technical illustrations: Chris Burns (Linda Werner & Associates Inc.)
• Release management: Nelly Delgado (Microsoft Corporation) and Richard Burte (ChannelCatalyst.com, Inc.)

We want to thank the customers, partners, and community members who have patiently reviewed our early content and drafts. Among them, we want to highlight the exceptional contributions of:

• Tiago Pascoal, Portugal Agilior (twitter: tspascoal)
• Paulo Morgado, Portugal  (twitter: paulomorgado)
• Debra Forsyth, USA ObjectSharp Consulting
• Carlos dos Santos, Brazil CDS Informática Ltda.  (twitter: cdssoftware)
• Richard Hundhausen, USA Accentient (twitter: rhundhause)
• Paul Glavich, Australia Saasu.com (twitter: glav)
• Mike Douglas, USA Deliveron Consulting Services (twitter: mikedouglasdev)
• Jacob Barna, USA Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska
• Benjamin Day, USA Benjamin Day Consulting (twitter: benday)
• Marcelo Hideaki Azuma,  ITGROUP (twitter: marceloazuma)

Very special thanks for their continued support to:

• Katrina Lyon-Smith, Microsoft Corporation
• Willy-Peter Schaub, Microsoft Corporation
• Anutthara Bharadwaj, Microsoft Corporation
• Muthukumaran Kasiviswanathan, Microsoft Corporation

Testing-related titles

• MSDN Library, Verifying Code by Using Unit Tests:
  https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/dd264975.aspx
• MSDN Library, Testing the Application:
  https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/ms182409(v=vs.110).aspx
• MSDN Library, Using a Virtual Lab for Your Application Lifecycle:
  https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/dd997438.aspx

Ranger titles

• Visual Studio ALM Rangers, Visual Studio Test Tooling Guidance:
  http://vsartesttoolingguide.codeplex.com/
• Visual Studio ALM Rangers, Visual Studio Lab Management Guide: http://vsarlabman.codeplex.com/
• Visual Studio ALM Rangers, Team Foundation Build Customization Guide:http://vsarbuildguide.codeplex.com/
• Visual Studio ALM Rangers, Visual Studio Team Foundation Server Branching and Merging Guide:https://vsarbranchingguide.codeplex.com/
• Visual Studio ALM Rangers, Visual Studio ALM Quick Reference Guidance:http://vsarquickguide.codeplex.com/
• Visual Studio ALM Rangers: https://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/ee358786.aspx

Feedback and support

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Visit the patterns & practices Test Infrastructure Guidance community site. This content is a guidance offering, designed to be reused, customized, and extended. It is not a Microsoft product. Code-based guidance is shipped "as is" and without warranties. Customers can obtain support through Microsoft Support Services for a fee, but the code is considered user-written by Microsoft support staff.

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Last built: Aug 6, 2012