This is a Windows client which does not require Visual Studio and target the needs of the tester. Here a tester can set up test manuscripts, run tests and report bugs. What was also really interesting is that while running tests, a tester can choose to record his steps and when filing a bug, he can automatically send a film or pictures of the situation. The recording can then also be used when verifying that a bug is fixed: the macro retakes all steps to the failing step, which makes the validation faster.

What also was interesting is the possibility to set up virtual environments for different test scenarios, for example different cultural settings and configurations. Since a test is run in a specific environment, we can keep better track of the environment in which the tests are run and not run. Also, when filing bugs, a snapshot of the environment at the time of the failure is possible.

Lab Management product  is an integrated solution that brings virtualization to the heart of application lifecycle management space.

• Create libraries of virtualized multi-tier test configurations really quickly
• Automatically deploy new builds of your application to these environments
• Seamless integration of our dev and test capabilities with the virtualized environments
• Take the €œno-more no-repro€  theme to the next level by leveraging snapshots

Lab Management  Architecture

The diagram below shows a high level architecture diagram for Lab Management.

On the server side, Lab Management service is one of the many services running inside Team Foundation Server (TFS). This is what makes the Lab Management solution unique for software testers and developers. Now we can map our lab resources, such as, hosts, virtual machines and storage to Team Project Collections and Team Projects; thus aligning lab hardware needs with the business needs for the projects we are working on.

The lab management service in TFS uses System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) for management of lab infrastructure and provisioning of virtual machines across multiple virtualization platforms.

On the client side, the €œMicrosoft Test and Lab Manager€ tool is  the tool to manage  virtualized assets. This is a Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) based rich client that allows you to define test plans, test suites, test cases and run them in physical or virtual environments.

Basic Concepts

Hardware virtualization is a disruptive technology that is changing the face of computing. Therefore, it is important to understand some of the basic concepts around virtualization and how these are used in Lab Management to understand this paradigm shift.

Virtual Machine

A virtual machine (VM) is a computer within a computer, implemented in software. A VM emulates a complete hardware system, from processor to network card, in a self-contained, isolated software environment, enabling the simultaneous operation of otherwise incompatible operating systems on a single physical computer. Each operating system runs in its own isolated software partition.

Virtual Machine look

A virtual machine snapshot is a file-based snapshot of the state, disk data, and configuration of a VM at a specific point in time. A VM snapshot is similar in functionality to laptop hibernation state with the additional flexibility that a VM supports multiple snapshots. You can roll back the VM to any of the previously taken snapshots and continue operating from there. The picture below shows a snapshot tree for a Hyper-V VM.

Host

A host is a physical

computer that hosts one or more virtual machines.

Host Group

A host group is a custom group of virtual machine hosts, which an administrator can create in SCVMM for ease of monitoring and management. Host groups can be used to allocate and determine the resources reserved for various team projects. For example, an administrator could create a host group named €œGlobal Bank Hosts€ for a team that works on €œGlobal Bank€ project and bind it to the corresponding team project in Team Foundation Admin Console.

Library Share

One of the beauties of virtual machines is that you don’t need to tie up a host if you are not actively using a VM. You can store it on a disk and bring it back to life on a host in a few minutes. SCVMM supports the concept of a library share where you can store virtual machines and other resources, such as, ISO images. The library share is nothing but a file share that is accessible to all the hosts. Similar to host groups, you can create multiple library shares for ease of management. For example, you could have a library share for storing pristine or golden OS images. Another library share could be used for storing VMs that have various application software components installed.

Environment

A typical multi-tier application consists of multiple roles, such as, Database Server, Web Server, Client, etc. Each role could be running on one or more computer. You could also have multiple roles running on a single computer. An environment is a set of roles that are required to run a specific application and the lab machines to be used for each role.

Managing environments for multi-tier applications is an error prone task today. Replicating the same environment at same or another site is even a bigger problem.

Lab Management surfaces environments as a first class entity.

Environment brings with it €˜strong’ group notion. That is when you do an operation on an environment, such as, start, stop, take snapshot, etc., that operation is applied on all the virtual machines that are part of the environment.