Design and development are important but they are only part of the formula. Large efficiencies can be gained by having a sophisticated and streamlined development infrastructure. Amadeus Consulting has tweaked its build environment over the years so much of the mundane tasks are automated. We use a continuous integration build process to avoid massive integration issues before builds. Our automated process supports the agile attributes of our hybrid development process.
Our automated builds include integrated unit tests, code analysis and automated promotion to testing environments. All of the build process is seamlessly integrated so developers can stay focused on development and not worry about infrastructure.
For additional rapid environment creation and quick tear downs, we utilize virtualized machines. And of course we store off our code in a source control system that is backed up offsite in real time. Some other tools that assist with the development process include: defect tracking, CruiseControl, NAnt, FxCop, MSBuild, MbUnit and SQL Compare.
