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Using VSTS API with PowerShell to scaffold Team Projects
In this post, Senior Application Development Managers Art Garcia demonstrates how to navigate the VSTS REST APIs. Visual Studio Team Services or VSTS has matured into one of the leading Application Lifecycle management tools available. It allows you to not only manage your work and team velocity, but it also is a great tool to use in building and deployment as well. If you have several projects both current and future, the setup and administration can sometimes be a challenge. You want to make sure all projects have certain team’s setup and some basic build and release artifacts. This will make transitioni...
Running Docker Windows and Linux Containers Simultaneously
Many of you with familiarity with Docker for Windows know how you currently have to switch between running either Windows or Linux Containers. In the following post, Premier Developer Consultant Randy Patterson teaches us how to combat this limitation and run Docker Windows and Linux Containers simultaneously on the same host. Starting with Docker for Windows version 18.03.0-ce-win59 the Linux Containers on Windows (LCOW) is available as an experimental feature. Previously, you could get LCOW only on the Edge or Nightly Build Channels. For people like me who need a stable version of Docker for Windows, thi...
Role of Web Based Technologies In Maximizing Code Sharing In Your Applications
In this post, Premier Developer Consultant Wael Kdouh shares ideas of the alternatives to reduce web complexity and increase code sharing. He does a side-by-side comparison of Cordova/Iconic, NativeScript, and React Native to help you explore some of your options to reduce complexity. I was recently approached by a colleague of mine with the following question: "What are the available alternatives to reduce the current complexity of developing for multiple channels?". In a nutshell he was looking for ways to maximize the amount of client code shared among iOS, Android and Web channels while still being abl...
Docker Blog Series Part 6 – How to use Service Fabric Reverse Proxy for container services
Learn about the container orchestrator, Service Fabric, and how to use Service Fabric Reverse Proxy for container services in Monu’s latest post. Monu Bambroo is a Consultant on the Premier Developer team. Service Fabric is a distributed systems platform that makes it easy to package, deploy, and manage scalable and reliable microservices and containers. Service Fabric also addresses the significant challenges in developing and managing cloud native applications. It is also an orchestrator of services across a cluster of machines and it is continuing to invest heavily in container orchestration and managem...
Real-time Code Quality with SonarLint in Visual Studio
In the second part of her SonarQube series, Premier Developer Consultant Sana Noorani builds on top of SonarQube technology and explains how SonarLint can be added in Visual Studio to track real time code quality. What is SonarLint? SonarLint an extension you can add to an IDE such as Visual Studio that can provide developers real-time feedback on the quality of the code. It can detect issues in seconds, which can improve productivity. SonarSource describes SonarLint as a capability that can work like a spell checker for text since it detects issues in your code as you go. In a previous post, I showed how you ca...
Agile UX: Incorporating User Experience into Agile Processes
Premier Developer Consultant Daisy Chaussee writes how to integrate user experience and design into agile processes. In combining Agile and UX, teams can attain greater collaboration, continuous improvement, and efficiency in development. The goal of this blog post is to provide guidance on how to integrate User Experience into Agile processes. In doing this, you can remove waste from the design process, harmonize the system of designers, developers, engineers, and others in cross-functional collaboration, and adopt a culture based on experimentation and continuous improvement. To incorporate UX into agile sp...
Order of Precedence when Configuring ASP.NET Core
In this post, Premier Developer Consultant Randy Patterson introduces the new configuration API for ASP.NET Core and its order of precedence. In previous version of ASP.NET, configuration was primarily handled by the ConfigurationManager class. This class typically obtained the user configurable settings from the AppSettings section located in the XML file web.config. While these limited configuration options have worked well in the past, it poses some challenges in cloud and container environments. The New Configuration API With the introduction of ASP.NET Core, a new Configuration API was introduced that p...
ARR and benefits for Premier customers
Senior Application Development Managers Sanjeev Gogna and Charles Ofori explain Azure Rapid Response (ARR) program, and explain how it benefits Premier customers. Overview With today's technology, availability, reliability, and uptime are fundamental to success. To overcome incidents and interruptions, Microsoft offers Azure Rapid Response, an expedited response framework with prioritized access to Microsoft's most knowledgeable experts. A designated Azure support team works to help you respond and recover quickly from critical issues. To begin, the team seeks to understand the basics of your deploymen...
Integrating Selenium tests in a release pipeline
Senior Application Development Manager Marcelo Silva recently posted this article demonstrating how to implement UI test automation using VSTS and Selenium.Today, I'd like to show you a proof-of-concept I created for one of my customers where we implement User Interface (UI) test automation into a Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) pipeline in Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS).First, a little background on the problem we're trying to solve: my customer wanted to introduce automated testing into their CI/CD pipeline. The conversation when in the direction of integrating Unit Tests and doing automa...