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Your Comprehensive Guide to the 70-496 Exam

The Microsoft 70-496 exam, formally titled "Administering Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2012," was a specialized certification that validated the skills of IT professionals responsible for installing, configuring, and managing the Team Foundation Server (TFS) platform. As a key exam in the Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer (MCSD) track for Application Lifecycle Management (ALM), it was designed for individuals who served as the backbone of a software development team's infrastructure. It certified a candidate's ability to ensure the development environment was stable, secure, and efficient.

Although Team Foundation Server 2012 and the 70-496 exam are now retired, the concepts and principles it covered are the direct ancestors of modern DevOps platforms, most notably Microsoft's own Azure DevOps. The exam focused on the core pillars of ALM: version control administration, work item tracking customization, build automation, and the underlying server infrastructure management. Understanding this curriculum is to understand the roots of today's integrated DevOps toolchains.

The 70-496 exam was a deeply technical and practical assessment. It required candidates to have hands-on experience with the TFS Administration Console, as well as a strong understanding of the platform's dependencies, including Windows Server, SQL Server, and SharePoint Services. The questions were often scenario-based, presenting a typical administrative challenge and requiring the candidate to identify the correct configuration or troubleshooting steps.

For today's IT professional, studying the topics of the 70-496 exam provides a valuable historical context. It showcases the evolution of software development practices from a siloed approach to the highly integrated and automated world of DevOps. The skills it validated in areas like backup and recovery, security management, and build infrastructure are still fundamentally relevant, even if the tools themselves have evolved.

The ALM and DevOps Landscape of the Era

To appreciate the significance of the 70-496 exam, one must understand the state of software development in the early 2010s. The industry was in a period of transition. The principles of Agile development were gaining widespread adoption, but the tools that teams used were often a disconnected collection of point solutions. A team might use one tool for version control, another for bug tracking, and a third for automated builds, with little to no integration between them.

This is where the concept of Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) came into focus. ALM is a holistic approach that seeks to manage the entire lifecycle of a software application, from the initial idea and requirements gathering, through development and testing, to deployment and maintenance. The goal of ALM is to provide a single, integrated environment that offers traceability and visibility across all these stages.

Team Foundation Server 2012 was Microsoft's flagship ALM solution and a leader in the market. It was one of the first major platforms to provide a tightly integrated suite of tools that covered all aspects of the software development lifecycle in a single product. It offered version control, work item tracking, build automation, testing tools, and reporting all out of the box. This integrated approach was a game-changer for many organizations.

The 70-496 exam, by focusing on the administration of this platform, was essentially a certification in managing the engine of a modern software development practice. The administrator's role was to keep this integrated ALM engine running smoothly, enabling the development teams to build better software, faster. This was the precursor to the modern role of the DevOps engineer.

Introduction to Team Projects and Process Templates

A fundamental concept in Team Foundation Server, and a key topic for the 70-496 exam, is the Team Project. A Team Project is the central container within TFS for all the artifacts related to a single software project. When you start a new project, the first thing you do is create a new Team Project. This project will contain its own version control repository, its own set of work items, its own build definitions, and its own reports.

When you create a new Team Project, you must choose a Process Template. A process template is a blueprint that defines the structure and the initial content of your team project. It is a collection of XML files that specifies things like the types of work items that will be available (e.g., User Story, Bug, Task), the workflow for those work items, the default security groups, and the initial set of reports.

TFS 2012 came with three main out-of-the-box process templates, each designed to support a different software development methodology. There was a template for Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) for Agile, a template for MSF for CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) for more formal processes, and a template for Scrum.

The ability to select the appropriate process template for a new project was a key skill. Furthermore, the 70-496 exam covered the more advanced topic of customizing these process templates. An administrator could download a template, modify its XML files to add new work item types or change a workflow, and then upload it back to TFS to be used for new projects. This allowed the platform to be tailored to an organization's specific processes.

Key Pillars of TFS 2012: An Initial Overview

The functionality of Team Foundation Server 2012, and therefore the curriculum of the 70-496 exam, was built upon four main pillars that represented the core of the Application Lifecycle Management process. The first of these pillars was Version Control. TFS provided a centralized version control system called Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC), where developers could check in their code, manage branches, and merge changes. The administrator's role was to manage the repository and its permissions.

The second pillar was Work Item Tracking. This was the system for managing all the "work" in a project. This included everything from high-level requirements and user stories to individual tasks and bugs. The work item tracking system was highly customizable and provided full traceability, allowing you to link a specific line of code back to the requirement that it was written to fulfill.

The third pillar was Build Automation. TFS included a powerful and scalable build system that allowed teams to automate the process of compiling their code, running unit tests, and packaging their application. This was the foundation of Continuous Integration (CI), a practice where every code check-in would automatically trigger a new build and a set of tests. The 70-496 exam covered the administration of this build infrastructure.

The fourth and final pillar was Reporting and Project Management. Through its integration with SQL Server Reporting Services and SharePoint, TFS provided a rich set of dashboards and reports. These provided project managers and stakeholders with real-time insights into the progress of the project, including things like bug trend reports, build quality indicators, and burndown charts for tracking agile project velocity.

Setting Up a TFS 2012 Practice Environment

To gain the hands-on experience necessary to pass the 70-496 exam, building a practice lab was essential. Given the age of the software, this would need to be done using virtualization. The lab environment would consist of several virtual machines to replicate a typical multi-tiered deployment.

The first and most important VM would be the data tier, running a supported version of Microsoft SQL Server, such as SQL Server 2012. This machine would host all the TFS databases, as well as the SQL Server Reporting Services and Analysis Services components that are required for the reporting features.

The second VM would be the application tier. This machine would run a Windows Server operating system, and it is where you would install the main Team Foundation Server software. This VM would also need to have the TFS prerequisites, such as Internet Information Services (IIS), installed. During the TFS installation, you would configure it to connect to the SQL Server instance on your data tier VM.

For a complete lab, you might also create a third VM to act as a dedicated build agent. You would install a build agent on this machine and configure it to communicate with the application tier. Finally, you would need a client VM with Visual Studio installed, which would allow you to connect to the TFS instance and act as a developer, checking in code and queuing builds. Building this environment from scratch was an excellent way to prepare for the installation and configuration topics on the 70-496 exam.

The Legacy of TFS Skills in the Age of Azure DevOps

The skills and knowledge validated by the 70-496 exam have a direct and clear lineage to the skills required to manage Microsoft's modern DevOps platform, Azure DevOps. Team Foundation Server was not discontinued; it evolved. The on-premises version of the product is now known as Azure DevOps Server, and its cloud-based sibling is Azure DevOps Services. While the name and the technology have been updated, many of the core administrative concepts remain the same.

The concept of a Team Project Collection in TFS is directly analogous to an Organization or a Project in Azure DevOps. The administrative tasks of managing security, permissions, and access at this level are conceptually identical. An administrator who learned how to manage TFS groups and permissions would find the security model in Azure DevOps very familiar.

The administration of build infrastructure has also evolved, but the principles are the same. In TFS 2012, you managed build controllers and agents. In Azure DevOps, you manage agent pools and agents. The task of installing, configuring, and maintaining the machines that run your automated builds is still a core responsibility for a DevOps engineer.

Even the process of customizing work item tracking, which was a complex XML-based process in TFS 2012, still exists in a more modern, graphical form in Azure DevOps. The fundamental concepts of work item types, states, and fields are unchanged. Therefore, an administrator who mastered the topics of the 70-496 exam was not just learning a single product version; they were building a foundational skill set that would remain relevant for the next decade of Microsoft's DevOps journey.

Planning a Team Foundation Server 2012 Deployment

A successful Team Foundation Server deployment, like any major server product installation, begins with careful planning. The 70-496 exam required candidates to understand the key considerations and prerequisites for a new TFS 2012 installation. The first step in this planning process was to assess the hardware and software requirements. This included ensuring that the chosen servers met the minimum CPU, RAM, and disk space specifications.

A critical part of the planning was choosing the right versions of the dependency software. TFS 2012 had a strict dependency on specific versions of Windows Server for the application tier and Microsoft SQL Server for the data tier. For full functionality, including reporting and project portals, you also needed to plan for the installation of SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS), SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS), and a compatible version of Microsoft SharePoint Foundation or Server.

The next major decision was the deployment topology. For a small team, a single-server installation, where the application tier and data tier were on the same machine, was a viable option. For larger teams or for better performance and scalability, a multi-server deployment was recommended, with a dedicated server for the SQL Server data tier and another for the TFS application tier.

Finally, the planning phase involved defining the service accounts that would be used by TFS. TFS uses several service accounts to run its various services and to communicate with SQL Server and SharePoint. It was a security best practice to use dedicated, least-privilege accounts for these services rather than a general administrator account. A detailed plan covering all these aspects was the key to a smooth installation.

Mastering the TFS 2012 Installation Process

The installation of Team Foundation Server 2012 was a wizard-driven process, but it had many options and required careful attention to detail. The 70-496 exam expected a deep familiarity with this installation wizard and the choices that an administrator had to make. The process would typically begin by running the installer on the designated application tier server.

The wizard would first guide you through the installation of the core TFS binaries. After this was complete, a separate configuration wizard would launch to set up the instance. Here, you had several configuration paths. You could choose a "Basic" setup, which was a simplified installation that did not include reporting or SharePoint integration and used SQL Server Express on the same machine. This was suitable only for very small teams or personal use.

The "Standard" and "Advanced" configuration paths were used for production deployments. In these paths, you would configure the connection to your dedicated SQL Server instance on the data tier. The wizard would test the connection and verify that the service account had the necessary permissions on the SQL Server.

The most complex part of the configuration was setting up the integration with SharePoint and SSRS. You had to provide the URLs for these services and configure the service accounts that TFS would use to connect to them. The wizard would then create the necessary databases, configure the web services in IIS, and provision the reporting and SharePoint components. A successful run of this wizard resulted in a fully functional, integrated ALM platform.

Configuring Application Tier Components

After the initial installation and configuration of TFS 2012, there were several important post-installation tasks that an administrator needed to perform. These tasks, managed through the TFS Administration Console, were a key part of the day-to-day administration covered by the 70-496 exam. One of the first tasks was to configure the email alert settings.

TFS has a powerful alerting system that can send email notifications to users when specific events occur, such as when a work item is assigned to them or when a build completes. To enable this, the administrator had to configure the SMTP server settings in the Administration Console. This told TFS how to connect to the company's mail server to send these notifications.

Another important configuration was managing the server's public URL. This is the URL that users and client tools would use to connect to the TFS instance. It was crucial to ensure that this was set correctly and that the DNS and network configurations were in place to allow clients to resolve and connect to this address.

The Administration Console also provided tools for managing the services of the application tier. You could see the status of all the TFS-related services and web applications running in IIS. You could also manage the service accounts used by these services and view the event logs for troubleshooting. A thorough understanding of all the options available in the Application Tier node of the console was essential for the 70-496 exam.

Managing Team Project Collections

A core architectural concept in Team Foundation Server 2012, and a major administrative topic for the 70-496 exam, was the Team Project Collection. A collection is a self-contained unit of projects that has its own dedicated SQL Server database. This was a significant architectural change from previous versions of TFS and was introduced to provide better scalability and administrative isolation.

All the data for all the team projects within a single collection—including all the source code, work items, and test cases—is stored in one database. This makes the collection a convenient unit for backup and restore operations. You can back up an entire collection by backing up its single database.

An administrator can create multiple collections on a single TFS instance. This is useful for creating a logical separation between different business units or major project groups within a large organization. For example, a large software company might create one collection for its "Windows Division" projects and a separate collection for its "Office Division" projects. Each collection can be managed independently.

The TFS Administration Console is the tool used to manage these collections. From the console, an administrator can create a new collection, which involves provisioning a new database on the SQL Server. They can also take a collection offline for maintenance, detach a collection from one TFS instance (in preparation for moving it to another), and delete a collection. These are all critical administrative tasks.

The TFS Security and Permissions Model

A deep understanding of the security and permissions model in Team Foundation Server 2012 was a non-negotiable requirement for passing the 70-496 exam. The model was both powerful and complex, providing a granular way to control access to every artifact within the system. The foundation of the model was the use of security groups.

Permissions in TFS are not assigned directly to individual users. Instead, users are added to TFS groups, and permissions are then assigned to those groups. This role-based approach makes security management much more scalable and maintainable. TFS came with a set of default security groups at each level, such as "Project Administrators," "Contributors," and "Readers."

The permissions themselves are hierarchical. They can be set at three main levels. Server-level (or instance-level) permissions are the broadest, controlling who can perform administrative actions on the entire TFS instance, such as creating new collections. Collection-level permissions control access to resources within a specific team project collection.

The most granular level is the project-level. Within a team project, you can set permissions on specific areas, such as a particular branch in version control, a specific query for work items, or a specific build definition. For example, you could configure the security on a "Release" branch to ensure that only a specific group of senior developers is allowed to check in code to it. This granular control was a key part of the 70-496 exam curriculum.

Administering TFS Groups and Users

The practical application of the TFS security model involves the day-to-day management of users and groups. The 70-496 exam required candidates to be proficient in these tasks. Users are not created within TFS itself. Instead, TFS integrates directly with Active Directory. To grant a user access to TFS, you add their Active Directory user account to the appropriate TFS security group.

The recommended best practice was to not add individual user accounts to the TFS groups directly. Instead, the best practice was to create Active Directory security groups that corresponded to the different roles on your project (e.g., "MyProject Developers," "MyProject Testers"). You would then add the individual user accounts to these AD groups. Finally, you would add the single AD group to the appropriate TFS group, such as the "Contributors" group.

This approach dramatically simplifies user management. When a new developer joins the team, the only action needed is to add them to the "MyProject Developers" AD group. They will automatically inherit all the correct permissions in TFS. When they leave the team, you simply remove them from the AD group, and all their access is instantly revoked.

All of this management is done through the web-based administration interface of TFS, or directly from within Visual Studio's Team Explorer. An administrator could browse the security settings for a project or a collection, see the default groups, and manage their membership. This was a core administrative workflow tested by the 70-496 exam.

Backing Up and Restoring a TFS Implementation

Protecting the data within Team Foundation Server was one of the most critical responsibilities of a TFS administrator, and the backup and restore process was a key topic for the 70-496 exam. The data in TFS, which includes all the company's source code and project history, is an invaluable intellectual property asset. A failure to properly back up this data could be catastrophic.

TFS 2012 included a dedicated, wizard-driven tool for backups, which was accessible from the TFS Administration Console. This tool was designed to simplify the complex process of backing up a TFS deployment. It understood all the dependencies of the system and ensured that all the necessary databases were backed up in a consistent state.

The backup wizard would back up not only the TFS databases (such as the collection database and the configuration database) but also the encryption key for the SQL Server Reporting Services instance. This was crucial for being able to restore the reporting functionality. The wizard allowed you to configure a schedule for the backups, enabling automated, regular protection of the data.

The restore process was also managed through a wizard in the Administration Console. In the event of a server failure, an administrator would first have to build a new set of servers with the same configuration. They would then use the restore wizard to restore the TFS databases from the backup. The 70-496 exam expected a solid understanding of this entire disaster recovery workflow.

Upgrading and Migrating Team Foundation Server

As new versions of Team Foundation Server were released, organizations would need to upgrade their existing installations to take advantage of the new features. The 70-496 exam covered the high-level concepts and planning considerations for performing an upgrade or a migration. The administrator was the key person responsible for planning and executing this complex process.

An in-place upgrade was one option. This involved running the installer for the new version of TFS directly on the existing TFS 2012 application tier server. The installer would then upgrade the binaries and the databases to the new version. This was a simpler process but carried a higher risk, as there was no easy way to roll back if something went wrong.

A more common and recommended approach was a migration-based upgrade. This involved setting up a brand new set of servers for the new TFS version. You would then back up the databases from the old TFS 2012 instance and restore them to the new SQL Server. Finally, you would install the new version of TFS on the new application tier and point it to the restored databases, at which point the upgrade process for the databases would begin.

This migration approach provided a much safer path, as the old TFS 2012 environment remained intact and could be used as a fallback if the upgrade encountered any problems. The 70-496 exam would test a candidate's knowledge of the steps involved in these processes and the best practices for minimizing downtime and risk during the upgrade.

Choosing a Version Control System: TFVC vs. Git

The 70-496 exam was based on Team Foundation Server 2012, a version that was at a crossroads in the world of version control. At the time, TFS's native and primary version control system was Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC). TFVC is a centralized version control system, meaning that there is a single, central repository of the code stored on the TFS server. Developers check out files from this central server to their local machine, make changes, and then check the files back in.

TFVC was a mature and powerful system, tightly integrated with the rest of the TFS feature set. It provided features like granular, path-based security permissions, check-in policies to enforce code quality, and server-side workspaces. The administration of TFVC, including setting up branching structures and managing permissions, was a major part of the 70-496 exam curriculum.

However, during the TFS 2012 era, the popularity of distributed version control systems (DVCS), particularly Git, was exploding. In a DVCS, every developer has a full copy of the entire repository on their local machine. This enables powerful new workflows, such as offline work and private branching, that are not possible in a centralized model.

In response to this trend, Microsoft added native support for Git as a second, first-class version control option in a later update to TFS 2012 and made it a core part of TFS 2013 and beyond. While the 70-496 exam was primarily focused on TFVC, an understanding of the difference between these two models was important context for any administrator of the platform.

Administering Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC)

The administration of Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC) was a core competency for any TFS administrator and a key topic for the 70-496 exam. This involved a set of tasks that were crucial for maintaining a healthy and well-organized code repository for the development teams. One of the most important of these tasks was establishing and managing the branching strategy.

Branching is the process of creating a separate copy of the codebase, allowing development to happen in isolation. A common strategy was to have a "MAIN" branch for the stable, primary line of development, and then to create "DEV" branches for new feature work and "RELEASE" branches for stabilizing a specific release. The TFS administrator was often responsible for creating these branches and managing the permissions on them.

Another key administrative task was the configuration of check-in policies. A check-in policy is a rule that must be satisfied before a developer is allowed to check in their code. For example, you could configure a policy that requires the developer to associate their check-in with a specific work item (like a task or a bug). This enforces traceability. You could also configure policies that required the code to compile successfully or pass a set of unit tests before it could be checked in.

The administrator was also responsible for managing workspaces. A workspace is the mapping between the folders on the TFS server and the folders on a developer's local machine. While developers usually manage their own workspaces, an administrator sometimes had to intervene to delete or unlock a workspace for a user. These administrative tasks were essential for ensuring the integrity and quality of the codebase.

Managing TFVC Permissions and Security

Just like with other artifacts in Team Foundation Server, access to the source code in Team Foundation Version Control was controlled by a granular permissions model. A deep understanding of how to configure these permissions was a critical security-related skill that was tested on the 70-496 exam. The security was managed at the level of individual folders or branches within the TFVC repository.

This allowed an administrator to implement very specific access control policies. For example, it was a common practice to make the "MAIN" or "RELEASE" branches read-only for most developers. Only a specific security group, such as "Release Managers" or "Team Leads," would be granted the "Check in" permission for these stable branches. This prevented unauthorized or accidental changes to the most critical parts of the codebase.

The permissions available in TFVC were very detailed. They included permissions like "Read" (to view and get the code), "Check out" (to edit the code), "Check in" (to submit changes), "Label" (to apply a version label), and "Administer branch permissions." These permissions could be set to "Allow" or "Deny." It was important to remember that a "Deny" permission would always override any "Allow" permissions.

These permissions were assigned to the standard TFS security groups. An administrator would use the source control explorer in Visual Studio or the web portal to access the security settings for a specific branch. From there, they could add or remove groups and configure their specific permissions. This was a crucial task for protecting the intellectual property stored in the version control system.

Understanding Work Item Tracking

The work item tracking system is the heart of the Application Lifecycle Management process in Team Foundation Server, and a solid understanding of its purpose and administration was a major part of the 70-496 exam. A work item is a record in the TFS database that is used to track a piece of work. This could be anything from a high-level business requirement to a low-level bug or development task.

Each work item is based on a "work item type" (WIT), which defines the fields, layout, and workflow for that type of work. For example, the "Bug" work item type would have fields for "Steps to Reproduce" and "Severity," while the "User Story" work item type would have fields for "Story Points" and "Acceptance Criteria." This specialization allows the system to be tailored to the specific needs of different development methodologies.

The work item tracking system provides full traceability. Work items can be linked to each other to create a hierarchical relationship. For example, several "Task" work items could be linked as children to a single "User Story" work item. Most importantly, work items can be linked to changesets in version control and to test cases. This creates a complete and auditable trail from a requirement, to the code that implemented it, to the tests that verified it.

The TFS administrator played a key role in managing this system. While developers and project managers used the system daily, the administrator was responsible for the more advanced tasks of customizing the process templates to modify the work item types, a key topic for the 70-496 exam.

Customizing Process Templates

While the out-of-the-box process templates (Agile, Scrum, CMMI) provided a great starting point, most organizations needed to customize them to match their specific development processes. The 70-496 exam required candidates to understand how to perform these customizations. In TFS 2012, this was a manual process that involved downloading the XML files that made up the process template, editing them, and then uploading them back to the server.

The process template is a collection of files that define all the artifacts for a team project. The most commonly customized parts were those related to work item tracking. The definition for each work item type (WIT), such as "Bug" or "Task," was stored in its own XML file. An administrator could edit this file to add new custom fields, change the layout of the work item form, or modify the workflow.

For example, a team might want to add a new field called "Customer Name" to their "Bug" work item type to track which customer reported the issue. The administrator would download the process template, edit the "Bug.xml" file to add the definition for the new field, and then upload the modified template. Any new team projects created with this customized template would now have the new field available.

This XML-based customization process was complex and required careful attention to detail, as an error in the XML could prevent the template from being uploaded. The 70-496 exam would test a candidate's knowledge of the structure of these XML files and the steps required to safely modify and manage the process templates.

Managing Work Item Fields and Workflows

A deeper dive into process template customization, and a key topic for the 70-496 exam, involves the management of work item fields and workflows. A work item field is a single piece of information that is tracked in a work item, such as "Assigned To," "Status," or "Priority." When you customize a work item type, you can add your own custom fields to track information that is specific to your organization.

The workflow of a work item type defines the different states that the work item can be in and the valid transitions between those states. For example, a "Bug" work item might have states like "New," "Active," "Resolved," and "Closed." The workflow would define that a bug can move from "New" to "Active," but not directly from "New" to "Closed."

This workflow was defined in the WORKFLOW section of the work item type's XML definition file. An administrator could edit this section to add new states or to change the allowed transitions. You could also define "reasons" for a transition and specify who is allowed to make a particular state change.

For example, a team might want to add a new state called "Ready for Test" to their "User Story" work item type. The administrator would need to modify the XML to define this new state and then define the transitions that allow a user story to move into and out of this state. This level of customization allowed TFS to be adapted to almost any development process.

Configuring Area and Iteration Paths

Two of the most important fields in every work item are the Area Path and the Iteration Path. The configuration and management of these paths was a core administrative task that was covered in the 70-496 exam. These two fields provide the primary organizational structure for all the work items in a team project.

The Area Path is a hierarchical field that is typically used to represent the different functional areas of a product or the different teams within an organization. For example, you could have a top-level area for "Website," with sub-areas for "User Interface," "Shopping Cart," and "Backend Services." By assigning each work item to an area, you can easily filter and query for all the work related to a specific part of your product.

The Iteration Path is a hierarchical field that is used to represent the project's timeline. It is typically used to define your releases and sprints (or iterations). For example, you could have a top-level iteration for "Release 1.0," with sub-iterations for "Sprint 1," "Sprint 2," and "Sprint 3." By assigning work items to a specific sprint, the team can manage its backlog and track its progress over time.

The administrator is responsible for setting up these hierarchical structures for each team project. This is done through the project's settings page in the web portal or from within Visual Studio. A well-designed area and iteration path structure is essential for effective project management and reporting in TFS.

Linking Work Items to Code Changes (Changesets)

One of the most powerful features of an integrated ALM platform like Team Foundation Server is traceability. The ability to link a work item, which represents a requirement or a bug, directly to the code that was written to address it is a crucial part of this traceability story. The 70-496 exam expected administrators to understand how this linking works and how to enforce it.

In Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC), every time a developer checks in a set of changes, a "changeset" is created. A changeset is a single, atomic unit that contains all the file edits, additions, and deletions that were part of that check-in. Each changeset is assigned a unique, sequential number.

TFS provides a mechanism to associate one or more work items with a changeset at the time of check-in. The developer can simply select the bug or task they were working on from a list, and this creates a formal link between the changeset and the work item. This means that you can look at any work item and see the exact changesets that were created to complete it.

To ensure that this vital link is always created, an administrator can configure a check-in policy. As mentioned earlier, you can set up a policy that requires every check-in to be associated with at least one work item. This enforces good practice and guarantees that you have a complete, end-to-end audit trail from the initial requirement all the way through to the specific lines of code that were changed.

The Architecture of the TFS 2012 Build System

Automating the build process is a cornerstone of modern software development and a key pillar of the Team Foundation Server platform. The 70-496 exam required a deep understanding of the architecture of the TFS 2012 build system and the roles of its various components. This architecture was designed to be scalable and distributed, allowing an organization to run many automated builds in parallel.

The two main components of the build infrastructure were the Team Build Controller and the Team Build Agent. The Team Build Controller was a service that managed and orchestrated the build process. It was responsible for receiving build requests from users, queuing them, and then distributing the build workload to a pool of available build agents. A single TFS instance could have multiple build controllers, each managing its own set of agents.

The Team Build Agent was the service that did the actual work of the build. An agent was installed on a dedicated build machine, which had all the necessary software installed, such as Visual Studio, the correct SDKs, and any third-party libraries. The agent would receive instructions from its controller, download the source code from version control, compile it, run the unit tests, and perform any other steps defined in the build process.

An administrator could set up a "build farm" by installing multiple build agents and associating them with a single controller. The controller would then automatically distribute the queued builds among the available agents, allowing for a high degree of parallelism. Understanding how to install, configure, and manage this controller-agent architecture was a critical skill for the 70-496 exam.

Installing and Configuring Build Controllers and Agents

The practical implementation of the build system, a core topic for the 70-496 exam, involved the installation and configuration of the build controllers and agents. This was done through a dedicated configuration wizard that was part of the Team Foundation Server installation media. An administrator would first decide on the servers that would host these components.

The build controller did not need to be on a particularly powerful machine, as its main job was orchestration. It did, however, need good network connectivity to the TFS application tier and to its agents. The administrator would run the configuration wizard on the chosen server, select the option to configure a build controller, and then associate that controller with a specific team project collection on the TFS server.

The build agents, on the other hand, needed to be installed on machines that mirrored the development environment. These machines, often referred to as "build servers," needed to have all the prerequisites for building the software, including the correct version of Visual Studio, any required SDKs, and any third-party components. The agent was the workhorse of the system, so this machine needed sufficient CPU and I/O performance.

The administrator would run the configuration wizard on each build server, select the option to configure a build agent, and then point that agent to its managing controller. You could even install multiple agents on a single powerful server to run more than one build at a time on that machine. A well-designed and properly configured build infrastructure was essential for a successful continuous integration strategy.

Creating and Managing Build Definitions

Once the build infrastructure was in place, the next step was to define the builds themselves. This was done by creating a "build definition." A build definition is a set of rules and parameters that tells the build system exactly how to build a specific piece of software. The 70-496 exam required candidates to be proficient in creating and managing these build definitions.

A build definition was created from within Visual Studio's Team Explorer. A wizard would guide the developer or build master through the process. The first step was to define what code should be built. This was done by specifying the path to the solution or project file in Team Foundation Version Control.

Next, you would configure the build triggers. The most important trigger was for Continuous Integration (CI). When CI was enabled, the build definition would automatically queue a new build every time a developer checked in a change to the source code. This provided rapid feedback on the quality of the code. You could also schedule builds to run at a specific time, such as a nightly build.

The build definition also specified which build controller should be used to run the build and where the output of the build (the compiled binaries) should be stored. You could also configure other aspects of the process, such as which unit tests should be run and how the work items associated with the check-ins should be updated. A well-crafted build definition was the key to a fully automated build process.

Customizing the Build Process Template

The logic of what a build definition actually did was controlled by a "build process template." The 70-496 exam required a conceptual understanding of these templates and how they could be customized. In TFS 2012, these templates were created using Windows Workflow Foundation (WF), and the template files were in a format called XAML (Extensible Application Markup Language).

TFS came with a set of default build process templates. The main default template already included the standard logic for getting the source code, compiling the solution, running tests, and publishing the results. For many teams, this default template was sufficient for their needs.

However, many organizations had unique requirements for their build process. They might need to add a custom step to run a code analysis tool, to generate documentation, or to deploy the application to a test environment. To do this, a developer or administrator would need to customize the XAML build process template.

This was an advanced task that involved downloading the default XAML template, opening it in the Visual Studio workflow designer, and then adding, removing, or modifying the activities in the workflow. The developer could add custom activities that would run PowerShell scripts or execute command-line tools. The customized template was then checked back into version control and could be selected in a build definition. This provided an extremely powerful and flexible way to extend the build system.

Integrating Reporting with SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS)

A key feature of the integrated ALM platform in TFS 2012 was its rich reporting capabilities. This was made possible through a deep integration with SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS), and the administration of this integration was a key topic for the 70-496 exam. SSRS is a server-based reporting platform that allows for the creation, management, and delivery of a wide variety of reports.

When TFS was installed and configured with reporting, it would automatically deploy a set of out-of-the-box reports to the SSRS instance. These reports were designed to provide insights into all aspects of the software development lifecycle. There were reports for project management, such as burndown charts and velocity reports for agile teams.

There were also reports related to code quality and version control, such as a report showing the churn of the codebase or the details of recent changesets. The build system also had a set of reports, which could show the success rate of builds over time, the duration of builds, and the results of the unit tests that were run as part of the build.

These reports were accessible directly from within Visual Studio's Team Explorer or through the team project's web portal. The TFS administrator was responsible for ensuring that the connection between TFS and the SSRS server was healthy and that the reports were being generated correctly.

The TFS Data Warehouse and Analysis Cube

The rich reports provided by TFS were not run directly against the live, transactional database. To do so would put a heavy load on the server and could impact the performance for developers who were actively using the system. Instead, TFS had a dedicated reporting data store, and the 70-496 exam required an administrator to understand its architecture.

The reporting architecture consisted of two main parts: a relational data warehouse and an OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) cube. A set of adapter jobs would run on a schedule (typically every few minutes) to pull the latest data from the transactional collection database and load it into a separate relational database called the data warehouse. This warehouse had a schema that was optimized for reporting queries.

The data from this relational warehouse was then periodically processed into an OLAP cube, which was hosted on SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS). The cube is a multi-dimensional data structure that pre-aggregates the data along various dimensions, such as time, project, and work item type. This pre-aggregation is what made the reports run very quickly.

When a user ran a report in SSRS, the report would query this OLAP cube, not the live transactional database. This architecture ensured that the reporting workload was completely isolated from the operational workload of the development teams. The TFS administrator was responsible for managing this entire data flow.

Managing the Data Warehouse and Cube Processing

The administration of the TFS data warehouse and OLAP cube was a key responsibility for a TFS administrator and a topic for the 70-496 exam. While the process was largely automated, there were times when manual intervention was required. The TFS Administration Console provided the tools for managing this reporting infrastructure.

From the console, an administrator could see the status of the data warehouse and the OLAP cube. They could see when the last successful processing job had run and whether there were any errors. If the data in the reports seemed to be out of date, this was the first place to check.

The console provided the ability to manually initiate the processing of the warehouse and the cube. This was often necessary after a major change to the server, such as restoring a collection database. The administrator could also use the console to completely rebuild the warehouse and the cube from scratch. This was a time-consuming process that was sometimes required to resolve data corruption issues.

Troubleshooting processing failures was another key skill. The administrator would need to look at the processing results in the Administration Console and, if necessary, delve into the event logs on the application tier and the SQL Server tier to identify the root cause of the problem. A healthy reporting system was essential for providing visibility into the health of the software projects.

Conclusion

In addition to the reporting provided by SSRS, Team Foundation Server 2012 also offered a deep integration with Microsoft SharePoint. This integration, a key administrative topic for the 70-496 exam, provided each team project with its own dedicated SharePoint project portal. This portal served as a central hub for team collaboration and document management.

When a new team project was created in TFS, if the SharePoint integration was configured, TFS would automatically create a new SharePoint site for that project. This site would come pre-configured with a set of document libraries, lists, and a dashboard that was specific to the process template that was chosen.

The project portal provided a place for the team to store all their project-related documents, such as requirements specifications, design documents, and meeting minutes. The dashboard on the portal's home page was a key feature. It was a web page that contained a set of web parts that displayed data from the TFS data warehouse. This included web parts for showing the project's burndown chart, build status, and recent work item changes.

The TFS administrator was responsible for managing this integration. This included the initial configuration of the connection between TFS and the SharePoint farm. It also involved managing the permissions on the SharePoint site, which were synchronized with the TFS security groups. This tight integration provided a single, unified experience for all project-related information.

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