automated tests and continuous integration in tfs 2010

Question

Some background: I am not a tfs guy and I dont know much about build scripts etc.

1 - Is there a way to run tests for every check-in TFS? What I'm dreaming is, if any of the tests is failing then build server rejects the changeset. Is it possible with TFS or should it be some other tool like Hudson, Cruise Control etc? What are the other powerful tools?

2 - Does using such a tool make it possible to run only portion of tests, not all of them (ie only unit tests, not integration tests)?

I am not interested in technical details like how it can be done technically, as it is our tfs team's job. Rather I am after some high level info about the possibilities?

Answer 1

In TFS you have what's called check-in policies. With those in place you could forbid checking-in something without all of the unit tests passing. You could even enforce FxCop rules, etc... but that would be cruel to your developers.

Answer 2

If you already have the Continuous Integration build set up, then change the trigger to Gated Check In, this will do exactly what you want. When a developer tries to commit, TFS will start the build, if the build fails then the check in will be aborted and instead TFS will create a shelveset of the changes.

As for running a portion of the tests, you would probably need to create a test list in your VSMDI that defines the tests you want to run and then configure the build to use that list.