Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Test host process exited unexpectedly - Failed to queue test run: Unable to start the agent process


Today i was taking session of developer group and talking about the Visual Studio 2013 Test tools. Well it seems they did tried using it and bumped into error("Test host process exited unexpectedly - Failed to queue test run: Unable to start the agent process")  on first trial. 

Well It was a easy fix. As the user was running 64 bit processor based VM, he was geeting an error as Test project setting were set to 32 bit. Just change the test project settings. 

Test-> Test Settings->Default processor Architecture ->Select x64

Tuesday, January 07, 2014

MVC / MVP / MVVM design pattern. What's the difference?

Classic discussion very much prevalent  in architecture community. Though the concepts are quite old now and there are numerous applications build using design patterns, i hear the confusion of these patterns even today.

It's much easier to do white boarding and explain but for some of my readers, i keep getting an email to share an article. Well found one really good webcast from Joe homnick wherein a sample is converted to explain multiple patterns:

Check this out :
http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2011/DPR305 [ Its a old tech end presentation but am sure my readers will appreciate this one]

By the way it also explains the scenario to use such patterns and to my SharePoint geek frds, i hope you are following the MVP.

Let me know your thoughts after listening to this one.




Monday, January 06, 2014

SharePoint 2013 Apps vs SharePoint 2013 Solution

For readers looking for MS article , here is the link. Don't want to take spend your time with my thoughts:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn268593.aspx

For readers who are interested and have to time to read my thoughts and provide there 2 cent, read below.....

A lot of organizations are now looking forward to migrate their SharePoint Farm from previous version to SharePoint 2013. But as soon as they start the analysis they bump into multiple new terms, methodology and implementation practices.

One of them which is introduced in SharePoint 2013 in App Model. Well a similar a lean model was tested as "Sandbox Solution" in 2010 version but with least success. It had it's own pain points and developers ended up creating server side controls(Webparts/ User controls).

As word is moving towards cloud platform and concept of applications, SharePoint 2013 took similar route and is now offering App model. Actually it's a pretty smart move. Such framework aligns SharePoint technology in line with open technology which is very much prevalent in today's world wherein there are multiple ways of displaying data(well mobile phone are game changer in today's world) and secondly this approach also takes care of pain of maintenance by SharePoint admin team who were having hard time explaining why the infrastructure is not holding up and tends to break down frequently( Thanks to badly written code by development teams..).

So going to back to question of " do we really need to go app way or should be stick to the old way of coding and deploying in server" .


My take " Though it will take time to learn and implement apps for all the existing customization, it's still worth looking into and converting the most complex ones to SharePoint App, mainly the apps which have longer shelf life in organization"

Read and let me know your thoughts. I understand its not as straightforward and quick for make these changes.

I would like to know the apps you are working which might be a good contender. I am always open for discussion..


Enjoy ..the changing landscape of technology..




Thursday, January 02, 2014

Windows Azure Websites / Cloud Services and VM's Confusion

I keep getting same query from my technology friends and clients on the main difference between  the Windows Azure Website/ Cloud Service and VM's. 

Which one should be considered while rolling out a cloud solution. I understand it can be quite confusing  for a non techie or even for IT management who are not into technology jargons. 

I generally tend to provide the below MS links to understand the difference but the article is still too technical.


So below are my take in simple terms. (Hopefully!!!)

Website Option is for you if :
  • Are you looking for hosting websites with good UI  with simple data transaction which does not deal with high transaction data and probably won't require complex engine in backend business tier.
  • If you don't want want to worry about maintenance of infrastructure(patches..)
  • Would like to have websites which can load balance as per traffic 
  • Provides templates to create websites using wordpress, joompla , droopal .....

Cloud Service (Platform as Service)
  • You can dealing with applications which involves high transaction and required scaled up business tier
  • You need remote access to servers to perform additional configuration e.g.
    • Scripting IIS
    • custom deployment of framework and configuration etc.
  • If you don't want want to worry about maintenance of infrastructure(patches..)
  • Would prefer to have staging and production environment

Virtual Machines ( Infrastructure as service)
  • This option is similar to the server management today done on -Premise. The only difference is that the server is hosted by Microsoft but management of infrastructure and application is your responsibility.
  • This option is good when you are moving your current application as-in in the cloud. The advantage of having VM in azure is that you will get servers on demand up and running in any part of world and won't have to worry about scaling your own datacenters
Now the most important part. COSTING!!!!

Well MS have a neat tool for calculating price. Give it a shot:


Hope this gets your understanding better than when you started reading this article..(I HOPE :-))

Rags


Gray Failures: What is it and how to detect one?

If you are reading this article , i guess you are curious to know about gray failures and different methods to detect gray failures.  Hopefu...