MGSI's centralized Build & Release Management Service
My org (MGSI - Microsoft global services india) falls under WorldWideServices arm of Microsoft and is pioneer in global delivery of consulting services where Delivery Excellence is the key factor. As part of adhering to quality and high standard, we created a new intiative with a team of enthusiasts called Build / Release management service team. This team is envisioned to be a centralized team which will take care of executing scheduled build for all the projects. Along side to build execution, other tasks done are as follows: build environement setup and management, running static code analysis and report all warning, run unit tests and capture test report and code coverage results, execute BVTs, etc. These build status collectively will be fed into an org-centralized intranet site where health and status of project can be obtained as report.
Am part of this team to provide my contribution. When I was trying to find a way to run static code analysis (fxcop) to the entire solution as part of team build, I faced a quite good challenge. TFS build definition file provides a tag <RunCodeAnalsis> which ascepts values namely - Never, Default & Always. Never - do not run code analysis, Default - use project setting to run code analysis, Always - override project setting while running code analysis. This is easy and direct approach to include code analysis as part of team build. Question is - 'how can I exclude rules while running code analysis as part of team build'. I found the following blog post which answered my question in detail and hence sharing this learning to the community here. The attached file contains the steps to be followed and a minimum recommended code analysis rule-set which can be applied to msot of the projects.