Continuous integration (CI) with TFS 2012 and FinalBuilder

FinalBuilder Discussion
1

I am working on the design of our build process.

What I have:

  • - complex build, packaging, deployment and distribution
  • - some steps done manually
  • - use FinalBuilder 7.0.0.2056

- many branches/versions/products in TFS 2012

Goals:

  • - CI
  • - Full automation of above-mentioned build, packaging, deployment and distribution

- Unit testing

The scenario I am leaning to is TFS performs smoke build and smoke test and then invokes FinalBuilder. Continua CI is nice but we have requirement to have unit test reports in TFS, and TFS has unlimited agents.

The idea is to:

  • - Make TFS monitor and perform build and smoke test (run unit tests) but not deploy
  • - modify build workflow to include Send activity to a service on different server. This service will receive parameter, which branch to build and it will invoke FinalBuilder.

 

The question is:

  • - what do you think?
  • - am I doing something that FinalBuilder already provides for? Specifically, tight integration with TFS, with TFS ability to kick the FinalBuilder?

 

2

You could certainly do what you want with TFS. FinalBuilder includes a TFS workflow activity and templates for invoking FinalBuilder. Note that while TFS has unlimited agents, you still need a FinalBuilder license for each agent machine, and one for the server.