Build Decision Making when Building Multiple Solutions

In larger enterprise efforts, where it is necessary to manage large applications, multiple Visual Studio solution files are frequently used to create a single application.  For this effort, developers must write their own MSBuild XML scripts.  This is where OpenMake Meister enhances the process. 

OpenMake Meister allows you to generate a build.xml file, called a Build Control File, that builds an application that uses multiple Visual Studio solution files with dependency linking.  During the build process, Meister's deep dependency scanning links all of the dependent parts together.  For a major retailer, this solution management feature allowed the development team to separate  application components into unique VS solution files, creating smaller solution files, without losing the ability to build all of the solutions as a single unit.

When applications become more complex, it is often not possible to manage the entire application as a single VS solution.  OpenMake Meister allows for teams to use as many VS solutions as needed, and not lose critical build functionality. OpenMake Meister can accurately determine the order in which objects between solution files should be built.  We call this good build "decision making."   

 Build Decision Making for Build Avoidance

Building faster is critical for large projects.  The most efficient way to build faster is through build avoidance.  Build avoidance simply means that your builds will be done incrementally, re-compiling only the objects that are out of date. With MSBuild you can define "Transform" relationships between objects and MSBuild will check the time and date of the relationships to determine if on object is out of date.  To do this, you must code the "Transform" statements manually in the MSBuild script to define how you want to handle the date/time checking process.

OpenMake Meister uses machine intelligence to automatically track these dependencies and perform the date/time checking. For a major financial institution, the build avoidance feature of OpenMake Meister allowed them to easily define a process for handling Emergency Build procedures.  To build their full application required over 8 hours.  To support an Emergency "fix" procedure, the wanted only the changes to be re-built.  

Meister's automatic build avoidance supported this need decreasing the build times from 8 hours to less than 30 minutes.   In addition, this same process was introduced into their Agile development practices allowing continuous integration builds to occur every time a check-in of source was performed, not just on a nightly basis.  With OpenMake Meister, 10 minute builds are possible, making continuous integration builds a reality.

Visual Studio 2005 Specific Build Issues with the Web Project

A common build challenge for VS 2005 developers is the Web Project.  The web project involves not only source and assemblies, but also a requirement to interact with the IIS web server.  MSBuild can call the process that creates the Web Project, but developers must manually create the MSBuild scripts.  In some cases, developers choose Nant, an Apache open source language, to create the build logic for VS 2005 Web Projects.  Meister provides an alternative.  It supports the building VS 2005 Web Projects by automatically generating they build scripts, similarly to the way VS 2005 generates MSBuild scripts for C# and J#. 

Scheduled, Automated and CI Builds

As applications written using the Visual Studio Framework mature, so does the need to manage the build process outside of the VS IDE.  With Meister, your builds can be executed the same way inside the IDE as outside the IDE allowing for Continuous Integration Builds, scheduled builds and builds automated through other called activities.