Using the System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 connector for Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 (download CTP1 here), operations teams can easily forward application performance monitoring information directly into Visual Studio Team Foundation Server as operational work items, enabling engineering teams to rapidly identify the root cause in the code itself and develop a fix. This will dramatically reduce the mean time to repair (MTTR). In CTP1, the following is a supported configuration:

• Windows 2008 R2 x64
• System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2
• AVIcode .NET Enterprise Management Pack 5.7 for Operations Manager
• Microsoft Visual Studio Team Explorer 2010
• .NET Framework 4.0

How does it all work? Well, Avicode monitors the .NET application from within System Center Operations Manager and raises alerts when things (are about to) go wrong. Through the connector framework, Alerts are sent to TFS and created as an ‘operational issue’ (work item). The developer uses Visual Studio to follow-up and gets a direct link into Avicode to view the exact error, context, etc. (more)

Here’s a global view (click on it for full size):

During the installation of the SCOM-TFS Connector, it installs the following components:

• TFS Connector Windows Service (Microsoft.Mom.TFSConnectorService.exe)
• TFS Communication Process (Microsoft.Mom.TFSConnectorInstance.exe)
• TFS Connector Management Pack (TFS Connector and TFS Connector (Templates) MP)
• TFS Connector Management Pack Template DLL (Microsoft.Mom.TFSConnectorCommon.dll)

TFS Connector Window Service

• It utilizes SCOM connector framework to retrieve Operations Manager alerts in ‘Assigned to Engineering’ status and sends them to TFS as operational issues via appropriate TFS Communication Process.
• It monitors for changes in alerts using SCOM SDK, and updates operational issues with the changes via TFS Communication Process.
• It monitors for changes in operational issues via TFS Communication Process, and updates alerts with the changes using SCOM SDK.

TFS Communication Process

• It hosts a WCF service for managing all TFS reading/wiring communication.
• It runs under the privileged account which is defined in a Run As profile inside SCOM. This Run As account is created automatically during TFS Connector configuration as part of Monitoring Template Wizard. This account is required to have sufficient permissions to create new work item types and manage work items.
  TFS Connector Management Pack and TFS Connector Management Pack Template DLL
• TFS Connector MP provides UI for configuring TFS Connector template, support queue management, connector configuration/troubleshooting dashboard. TFS Connector enables mapping of application components monitored using AVIcode .NET Enterprise MP to TFS projects. This allows routing of alerts associated with application components to appropriate TFS Operational Items queue.
• TFS Connector MP DLL provides custom UI for the TFS Connector Monitoring Wizard. It has to be installed on every computer that will be used for configuring TFS Connectors.

Here are some screenshots on installing and using the connector (click on the picture for full size):