Awesome!    I found out over the weekend that the Developer Smackdown podcast show where I was a guest has been posted online!  Go check it out.  Clark Sell and Mark Nichols are the co-hosts for the show and it was a fun chat about migrating to Team Foundation Server from legacy systems.

Show: TFS Migrations with Ed Blankenship

Here is the list of sites and\or resources mentioned in this show:

• Team Foundation Server
• Timely Migration
• Team Foundation Server Power Tools
• Visual Studio Power Tools
• Scripting with Windows PowerShell
• MSBuild
• Windows Workflow
• TFS Integration Platform

When doing a TFS Migration make sure you think about some of the following items:

• Are you a big TFS project or little TFS Project kind of guy?  Think about your organization and their reporting structures when considering "the size" of your TFS projects.
• Think about how you would report on things?  What types of questions are you trying to answer with your reports?
• Did you know that Branch Visualization doesn't work across Team Projects ( at least as of the time of writing this )
• Treat the migration just like any other product development you would do.
• 1 GB of source typically takes 24 hours to migrate.  That is execution time.  (Conservative Estimate)
• How much history do you really need?  Was it worth the cost to migrate?

Follow Show On Twitter

Subscribe to Podcast in Zune

Subscribe to Podcast in iTunes

Ed Blankenship

For the longest time, opening a build process template (.xaml) file for TFS 2010 has been pretty painful.  It took a while for the workflow designer to eventually show up and the toolbox to be populated with the TFS Build Activities.  Nearly 30-45 seconds at times!

Recently, I applied a workaround that has dramatically reduced the time down to around 2 seconds!  Try it out:

1. Create a file called empty.xaml and place the following text in it:
   <Activity xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/netfx/2009/xaml/activities">
   </Activity>
2. Open this file in Visual Studio.
3. In the toolbox panel, add a new tab called “Team Foundation Build Activities”.  Note that it is important to get the tab name correct because if it is not correct then the activities will be reloaded.
4. Inside the new tab, right click and select “Choose Items”
5. Click the Browse button
6. Load the file C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\assembly\GAC_MSIL\Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Workflow\v4.0_10.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a\Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Workflow.dll
7. Click OK to add the toolbox items to the tab.
8. Create another new tab called “Team Foundation LabManagement Activities”.
9. Inside the new tab, right click and select “Choose Items”
10. Click the Browse button
11. Load the file C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\assembly\GAC_MSIL\Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Lab.Workflow.Activities\v4.0_10.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a\Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Lab.Workflow.Activities.dll
12. Click OK to add the toolbox items to the tab.

Ed Blankenship

A few months ago in June, I took the Microsoft Certification Exam for Team Foundation Server 2010 Administration (70-512) after announcing that it had now become available.  I did pass the exam but it’s taken until a few days ago to actually post to the Microsoft Certification transcripts because of an internal glitch at Microsoft.  If you have passed the exam between the time it was launched and a few days ago, you should double-check your transcript now to see the new certification and exam listed.

I’m happy to announce that I’m official a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) in Team Foundation Server 2010, Administration.  Now that’s a long certification title!

Ed Blankenship

If you are wanting to take advantage of poll based cache event notification in Windows Server AppFabric then you need to be aware of the cluster and app config settings to enable this functionality.

When setting up a new cache via XML or PowerShell you need to enable the notification feature. If you already have a cache setup and want to enable this feature then you will need to stop the cache cluster then apply the update via xml or PowerShell (Set-CacheConfig {yourCache} -NotificationsEnabled true)

XML based Cluster Config

For the application configuration you need to add the optional element “pollInterval” and specify a time in seconds, otherwise the default time is 300 seconds (not ideal if you are testing this feature out).

Client App.Config

Ed Kisinger