Can I get TFS to deploy and execute tests on a different server?

Question

I'm looking to get TFS to build and deploy to our manual and auto TEST environments. manual TEST - overnight updates auto TEST - continuous integration

Once deployed, I want TFS to deploy and run a set of web-integration tests (SpecFlow / Selenium / nUnit) on another server (acting pseudo client of the website). I then want TFS to collate the results of these tests and report back.

What's the best approach to get this working?

Answer 1

You'd normally change the build process template to do what you want. Adding steps to deploy could be one of these customozations. Have a look at the Build Release Deploy build template from the Microsoft ALM Rangers which includes steps to publish the build to another machine.

You can also make use of WebDeploy and add a set of publish profiles to your solution. Team Build will happily execute those steps during build, if told to do so.

In TFS you can use a Test Agent to then execute tests from a remote machine and have the results added to the test results for your build.

Seeing that you'd like to use NUnit ad SpecFlow I suggest using TFS 2012 in combination with Visual Studio 2012, which have built-in support for executing 3rd party based tests. You'll need to install the NUnit adapter and put the assemblies for it in source control so that Team Build will pick them up.