Chapter 2. Getting Started with Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS)

Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important.                                                                                                                        —Bill Gates

In this chapter, we will introduce Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) and the sample application structure that is necessary to understand before automating the process of building and deploying the application in a desired environment. We will cover the basics of the agile process framework supported in VSTS. This chapter also explains how to use VSTS to manage code and integrate VSTS with the Eclipse IDE so the check in process can be managed directly from IDE.

The following topics are covered:

• Introduction to VSTS
• Creating a free account in VSTS
• Configuration and user management in VSTS
• Overview of agile in VSTS
• Overview of a sample JEE application
• Eclipse integration with...

Introduction to VSTS

In a nutshell, DevOps is all about cultivating the culture of effective communication and collaboration between the development and operations teams to make processes efficient. The DevOps culture involves implementation of source control systems, build tools, CI, cloud computing (service models such as IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS; deployment models such as the public cloud, private cloud, hybrid cloud, and community cloud), containers, configuration management, Continuous Delivery (CD), continuous deployment, continuous feedback, security, governance, and so on.

Microsoft Toolsets provides an easy way to deploy applications having a platform such as Java, .NET, Android, and iOS. The intent of VSTS and Microsoft Azure Cloud Services is to provide agility, scalability, faster time to market, and automation for end-to-end application life cycle management.

VSTS is a cloud-based service offering from Microsoft that provides the Team Foundation Server (TFS) like version control system...

Creating a free account on VSTS

To create a free account and your first project on VSTS follow these steps:

1. Go to https://www.visualstudio.com/team-services/.
2. Click on the Free Account button on the main page:

Make sure to create or have a live Microsoft Outlook ID before going further.

In our case, we have a Microsoft account already, so we will use the same ID to create a free account with VSTS.

3. Enter the e-mail ID and click on Continue:

4. If the username exists, then it will ask for the password. Enter the password and click on Sign in:

5. You will be presented with the Visual Studio Team Services Accounts page. In our case, we already have two accounts. For this book, we will create another account:

6. Click on Create new account and a dialog box will be opened:

7. Enter the name of the account and select the repository with which we will manage the code. In our case, we will select Team Foundation Version Control. This selection is per project and not account specific.

Once the project is ready, we can...

Configuration and user management in VSTS

For configuration and user management follow these steps:

1. Open the newly created project PetClinic and click on the settings icon. On the Project profile page, the team information is available. Click on PetClinic Team:

2. By default, the admin account is already available as a team member. Click on +Add to add a new team member for collaboration:

3. Use sign-in addresses or group aliases and click on Save changes:

4. Verify the team members of PetClinic Team in the dashboard:

5. Go to Dashboards of the team project and verify the Team Members section as well:

We have successfully added a team member to the main team of the project. This is how we can create a project and manage a team. In the next section, we will discuss how agile can be managed in VSTS.

Overview of agile in VSTS

Agile principles have changed the game in recent times. Because of the feature-wise implementation and short sprints, delivery of the application becomes extremely faster. An end-to-end discussion on agile is out of the scope of this book; however, we will try to give a brief summary.

There are different phases in SDLC, and traditionally, all those phases are managed or executed in a sequential manner—the waterfall model. The problem with this model is that it is in sequence and a one-time activity; each phase takes a lot of time and changes are not easy. Feedback from the customer take so long that at the end of all the phases, we as developers are not sure whether we have implemented the same product that was intended and communicated by the customer or there was a communication gap. The ideal way to deal with this is to provide frequent delivery to the customer for a few features and receive frequent feedback to fix things or innovate. The visible benefit is this...

Overview of a sample JEE application

For this book, we will use a sample Spring-based application available at https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-petclinic. You can also download this application from https://github.com/mitesh51/spring-petclinic.

Just download the PetClinic application and then we will use it in our next section where we will integrate Eclipse with TFS online.

 

Eclipse integration with TFS online in VSTS

In this section, we will integrate Eclipse with TFS online so we can check in any changes we do in the code to VSTS / TFS online.

First, we will download Eclipse from http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/packages/eclipse-ide-java-ee-developers/marsr:

Click on Java EE and from Eclipse IDE for Java EE developers, download the appropriate version of Eclipse:

Extract the files from the compressed Eclipse installation file. Now, click on eclipse.exe:

Our task is to install the TFS plugin, so we can connect TFS from Eclipse, check in code, or make any changes to the code, and save it to the TFS repository.

Click on the Help menu and select Install New Software...:

Click on the Add... button to add a site:

It will open an Add Repository dialog box. Provide the Name and the site of the repository. In Location, enter http://dl.microsoft.com/eclipse. Click on OK:

In the Available Software list, select Azure Toolkit for Java and Team Explorer Everywhere:

Expand both the...

Summary

In this chapter, we covered an overview of VSTS, created a free account in VSTS, performed user management in VSTS, did an overview of the agile process template in VSTS and an overview of a sample JEE application, and performed Eclipse integration with TFS online in VSTS.

As we have set up the base, we will go ahead with CI and CD. In the next chapter, we will setup CI by using VSTS.