Collaboration Framework (CFW):  Many organization lack this or have it in one form or another but does not really utilize it to it’s full potential.  A properly enforced, maintained, and updated CFW fulfills the following: Focal Communication Point (think: TWiki) Robust and Scalable Backend to Ensure Proper Archiving (think:  mySQL) Provides Detail Content for Various [...]

An SCM group just isn’t serious without proper vision statements and lofty goals. Even if you’re the lone SCM Engineer within your group, you should still strife for certain milestones.  The software field is constantly evolving which means SCM should closely mirror that evolution. It should be the ultimate goal of an SCM Engineer to [...]

Numerous times in the past as well as recently my SCM group have ran into service related problems with the company’s IT.  The underlying concern is where do we draw the line of support between SCM and IT when the build farm servers need servicing.  In particular, when important reporting/build servers crashes which dramatically affects [...]

I’ve seen a lot of organizations running into this problem such that their build environment gets to a point where it is so complicated that the best way to preserve it is through archiving the image.  I’m talking about archiving the entire build machine using image tools such as Norton Ghost, VMWare, or Microsoft VirtualPC.  [...]

Awhile back when I was implementing a particular build into the CI model, I ran into a dependency debate; both with my own as well as the development group.  The project (A) in question has a lib dependency on another project (B).   The difference in view came when I suggested for A to depend [...]

CruiseControl.NET allows you to trigger a build base on another build’s successful completion. This is useful in that it allows builds with dependencies to be fully automated. When one is built successfully, another or more will be triggered. Here is an example code snippet: Within the <triggers> block, you can add an additional trigger similar [...]