Next Version of Visual Studio ALM Announced at Tech•Ed

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imageJason Zander, corporate vice president of Visual Studio, announced a key pillar of the next version of Microsoft Visual Studio at Tech•Ed North America today. He also demonstrated a connector that will improve the interaction between the development and operations teams.

vNext ALM

For developer he explained Microsoft vision of the next generation Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) technologies that will help organizations ease application development and management.

ALM in the next version of Visual Studio can be broken down into three main themes:

There are a number of scenarios that span the next version of Visual Studio for ALM. These scenarios improve the creation, maintenance and support of software solutions by focusing on improving the workflow across the entire team as well as across the entire lifecycle.

  • Agile Planning Tools – create transparency across the planning process and full team participation through solutions like the new backlog and task board.
  • Lightweight Requirements – a natural way to capture and receive feedback on requirements early in the process.
  • Stakeholder Feedback – working code which matches the expectations of stakeholders.
  • Continuous Testing – unit test coverage ensures quality in the final product.
  • Agile Quality Assurance – increased code quality with code review support, enhanced unit testing frameworks and new exploratory testing support.
  • Enhanced User Experience – more time ‘in the zone’, through improved experiences for day-to-day tasks.
  • Aligning Development with Operations – increased connections and insight between the operations and development teams lowering the time it takes to fix a bug in production.

For more information on the ALM vision, see Zander’s blog post Announcing ALM Roadmap in Visual Studio vNext at Teched.

Tighter Integration Between Devs and Operations Teams

System Center Operations ManagerZander demonstrated a connector that links Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 and Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 to improve the interaction between the development and operations teams.

The connector enables an operations team to send application performance monitoring and diagnostic information immediately to the engineering team. Microsoft delivered a community technology preview of the new connector today, available for download at Operations Manager Connector for Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010.

Using ALM Today

Organizations interested in taking advantage of the benefits of ALM should today start using Visual Studio 2010 with an MSDN subscription. More information is included on the Visual Studio website, https://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio , and on the MSDN website, https://msdn.microsoft.com/visualstudio .

Private Cloud Demonstrated at Tech•Ed

Microsoft Corporate Vice Presidents Robert Wahbe and Jason Zander delivered a keynote that focused on the benefits customers and partners are getting from Microsoft Corp.’s cloud and development platforms.

Wahbe showcased how customers HSBC and Travelocity.com LP are using Microsoft’s virtualization and public and private cloud solutions to help reduce costs and speed innovation. In addition, NetApp and Cisco Systems Inc. have joined the growing ranks of partners in the Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track program, designed to streamline the delivery of a private cloud.

As businesses look to further enable IT efficiency through the deployment of virtualization and cloud solutions, Microsoft also announced the following:

  • There are now additional supported hypervisor scenarios for virtualized Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, including Unified Messaging. This combines Exchange’s high-availability solutions, Database Availability Groups, with hypervisor-based clustering and failover solutions. Organizations planning to virtualize their Exchange 2010 deployments can get details from The Exchange Team Blog.
  • New license mobility options will become available July 1, 2011, through Microsoft Volume Licensing agreements with an active Software Assurance benefit. The new options will provide customers with the flexibility to deploy application services on-premises or through hosted service providers in the cloud. More information is available on the Microsoft Partner Network Volume Licensing website.

For More Information

About TechEd

The 19th annual Microsoft Tech·Ed North America conference provides developers and IT professionals the most comprehensive technical education across Microsoft's current and soon-to-be-released suite of products, solutions and services.

Our four day event at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia offers hands-on learning, deep product exploration and opportunities to connect with industry and Microsoft experts one-to-one.

See the TechEd keynote and developer sessions during the week at https://northamerica.msteched.com/default.aspx

 

Bruce D. KyleISV Architect Evangelist | Microsoft Corporation

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