January 2008 - Posts

WCF Load Test Tool Published

Project Description from the project home page on CodePlex:

"This tool takes a WCF trace file and a WCF client proxy, or a WCF interface contract, and generates a unit test that replays the same sequence of calls found in the trace file. The code generated is easily modifiable so that data variation can be introduced for the purpose of doing performance testing."

Rob Jarratt showed us a demo for the latest version of the tool last week. If you have created any type of test (unit, load, manual, etc) in Visual Studio, then you are already familiar with how the WCF Load Test works. When you install the setup package, the tool adds a new project item type to Visual Studio called "WCF Test" and the test code generated by the wizard will be added to the new test item.

Something that I really like about this tool is that it generates the code for populating the object model (based on your data contracts), which will be then converted into a WCF message that matches the original trace when the tool uses the generated proxy or the channel factory. The object model is very easy to work with and you don't have to mess around with the underlying XML. The code generation for the object model is very flexible and supports nested properties and collections. This is done by looking at the captured message and reflecting over the data contract types you provide as input.

Another cool feature is to allow you to generate one test class that generates all of the messages captured in the trace, or generate one test for every single message. This gives you higher flexibility when you want to apply various load patterns and test mix models to your load tests in VSTS 2008 Test Edition or Team Suite (and by the way, the tool supports Visual Studio 2005 too).

Posted by Mehran Nikoo | with no comments
Filed under: ,

.NET Framework Library Source Code Is Released

The .NET Framework Library source code is now released.

This release allows you to browse and debug the source code for the majority of the .NET Framework class libraries like the BCL, ASP.NET, Windows Forms, WPF, ASP.NET and XML. Additional class libraries like LINQ, WCF and WF will be added to the existing list in the coming weeks/months.

Bill Gates' Last Day at Microsoft

Courtesy of Will...

Very cool video. Starring:

Brian Williams, Lisa Brummell, Steve Ballmer, Matthew McConaughey, Robbie Bach, Jay-Z, Bono, Steven Spielberg, George Clooney, Jon Stewart, Kevin Turner, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Al Gore, Ray Ozzie, Craig Mundie and last but not least... Bill Gates.

Posted by Mehran Nikoo | with no comments
Filed under:

VSTS 2008 Team Suite and TFS VPC Images [Trial]

Happy New Year everyone!

Just before the Christmas holiday period, the VPC images for VSTS 2008 TFS and Team Suite were released to web:

- The first image is a complete set and has the Team Suite, TFS, Team Build and Team Explorer running on Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition SP2. [4.3GB compressed, 11GB uncompressed]

- The second image is a subset of the first image and includes TFS and Team Explorer running on Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition SP2. [2.6GB compressed, 7GB uncompressed]

Please note that both images are trial editions and expire on 1st April 2008.

Posted by Mehran Nikoo | with no comments
Filed under: