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ALM Rangers at work again!

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Earlier this month, the ALM Rangers team released two newly-completed projects to CodePlex, the Rangers Lab Management Guide and the Rangers Build Customization Guide.

I expect you to find both guides valuable as you further your usage of Team Foundation Server 2010.  Below are some details for each project.  Selfishly, I’m especially fond of the second one (I was a contributing author) :

Lab Management Guide

This project has the primary goal of delivering scenario based and hands-on guidance for the planning, setup, configuration and usage of Visual Studio Lab Management, backed by custom VM Template automation for reference environments.

The content is packaged in 3 separate zip files to give you the choice of selective downloads. The default download is the first of the listed packages:

  • Guidance, which includes scenario based practical guidance and frequently asked questions.

  • Hands-on Labs (HOL) , which includes the HOL documents that provide walkthroughs of the technology, based on the guidance

  • HOL Package, which includes a HOL environment setup package which allows you to setup the HOL environment in your own environment

The Epics included in the guidance are:

  • Epic - Visualization of the guidance using quick reference posters
  • Epic - Advanced golden image management using the VM Factory for Lab Management
  • Epic - Provide guidance on setting up Test environments with respect to pre-defined personas
  • Epic - Provide Guidance to enable large and small teams to setup and configure both automated and manual tests
  • Epic - Provide practical guidance for managing and maintaining a Lab Management environment
  • Epic - Provide practical guidance to enable teams to quickly setup and configure their lab management environment

Build Customization Guide

This project has the primary goal of delivering scenario based and hands-on lab guidance for the customization and deployment of Team Foundation Build 2010 activities such as versioning, code signing, and branching.

Guidance, Hands-on Labs, and Quick Reference Posters

The content for this project is provided in individual packages to allow you to be selective in what you get:

  • Guidance contains scenario based practical guidance, frequently asked questions and quick reference posters
    • Selected PDF contains guidance and quick reference posters in PDF format only.
    • Complete contains guidance, quick reference posters and localization files in all available formats.
  • Hands-on Labs (HOL) includes:
    • HOL documents that provide walkthroughs of the technology, based on the guidance
    • HOL Package contains a HOL environment setup package allowing you to setup the HOL environment in your own environment
    • BRDLite Build Process Reference Template walk-through.
  • Samples contains sample build process templates used by the team as part of the guidance.
  • Videos which showcase the guidance in quick 5-10min videos.

The Epics included in the guidance are:

  • Practical guidance and tooling to simplify the customization of Team Foundation Build
  • Practical guidance to use Team Foundation Build process templates to automate build and non-build scenarios in Microsoft environments
  • Practical guidance to enable simple and flexible deployment of applications and their data stores
  • Practical guidance for Activities to empower developers and build engineers
  • Quality hands-on labs that complement the guidance and effectively guide the user through the features
  • Visualization of the guidance using quick reference posters

For additional information related to this project, check out Willy’s post.

 

Like what you see?  Check out the full list of Rangers projects.  Also, be sure to read about who the Rangers are!