I've decided I can't wait any longer on the spam fix. DNJ has been great and I'll probably continue to direct posts from here to my new blog for the near future.
I've setup Community Server RC3 and have begun posting on the new site. It's likely to be a little iffy until I can iron out any issues that might come up.
Check it out here:
CodeVerity
RSS
I've been spending a lot of quality time with Team System creating, running, and cursing web tests and load tests. Don't get me wrong here, the product is a lot better than trying to write load tests in ACT, but it falls short in a number of places. It's still beta so hopefully these things will be addressed before RTM.
My Current List of Issues
No way to share test context between tests -- I want to be able to create a test called LogIn that only logs a user in. Then I want to create a test that is ModifyAccount that only modifies the user account. The ModifyAccount test depends on the user being logged in so I want to be able to point it to LogIn and have that context (cookies, etc) pass through. Otherwise I have to duplicate the LogIn code in each and every test that requires a user be authenticated. That sucks!
Memory Usage -- I'm running with 1Gig of RAM and the default selection of counters causes the test to fail due to lack of memory in minutes. In fact I had to close everything down and remove well over 50% of the counters in order to get a test to run for more than a few minutes. On top of that if I used SQLExpress to store the results it's memory usage would grow as long as the test was running (which would only be about 5 minutes) and again it would shut down. I had to change to Xml storage to get a test to run for any length of time.
DataSources -- The whole datasource concept needs some work. Once you setup a datasource there is no way to change it. For example I changed a table name. The datasource contains the table names and doesn't allow you to change them once it is created. In fact the entire database could be missing, but the datasource will happily act as if it is available. Another issue I ran into was the fact that I had two tables, one of which was empty [no rows] and the other had data. My webtest was bound to the table with data however the test refused to run because it said that it was bound to a table with no rows [which it wasn't using]. Since I can't modify the tables I had to insert a dummy record into the empty table in order to get the test to run.
Graph View -- The graph view of the performance counters is nice, but the decision to vary the scale dynamically seems like a poor one especially from a Human Factors point of view. Now, when looking at a running test, or test results, I can't compare the lines I have to mentally do the coversion to make sure everything has the same scale. Also I noticed if you add two counters that are similar but vary only by page name only the first counter will be added to the graph. Evidently the graph decides the counter is already there so it doesn't show it again.
Location of Results -- One of the issues I'm having is that I'm running out of space on my C drive. The XmlResults files are placed in C and I couldn't find a dialog that would allow me to move them somewhere else. This is a real problem because the test will shut down if you run out of space. I should be able to have these files live anywhere, not just under some folder in Documents and Settings
Test Settings -- Another more general complaint is that after you have created your load test and you decide you want to change some values (number of users, think time, whatever) it is no small feat to figure out where to go. There are many items in the load test tree and except for a few of the more obvious ones finding a specific entry/value is a hassle. The opening wizard is nice, so about a single click relaunch of the wizard to keep it that way?
The NH .net user group meeting is coming up. If you live/work in the southern New Hampshire area be sure to come by and hear Thom Robbins talk about VS2005 and Team System.
NH DNUG Web Site
http://www.nhdn.com/dnn/
Meeting Details
April 21st Meeting
6:00 to 8:30
BU Corporate Education Center, Tyngsboro, MA
vCalendar
Introducing the Visual Studio 2005 Team System
Our guest speaker this month is our good friend and local Microsoft Technical Evangelist, Thom Robbins with a great subject.
The Visual Studio 2005 Team System is one of the most important evolutions for .NET Developers. The inclusion of lifecycles tools, new source code control and many other features are just some of the new additions. Join us for this session for a technical drill down on the new features.
http://weblogs.asp.net/trobbins
PLEASE RSVP For the Pizza Order