DV3458

Better Software Development and Testing using VMware Workstation

VMware Workstation has much to offer software developers and testers.
Virtualization simplifies development by providing easy access to a
diversity of environments (Windows XP, Vista, 7, etc.), control of the
state of these environments (a snapshot ensures development/testing
happens in a consistent and known machine state), and sharing of these
environments (developers can more easily reproduce bugs in known machine
configurations). In addition, VMware Workstation provides specific
features to help solve the most onerous development/testing challenges.
The replay debugging feature allows a developer to debug a recorded form
of program execution that is guaranteed to have 100% deterministic
behavior each time it is replayed. Once recorded, even non-deterministic
bugs are easily reproduced and identified in the debugger. Because
developers are debugging a recording, the debugging process itself does
not interfere with the target program, so thread scheduling and network
connections are not impacted by the debugger. Furthermore, the
recording itself represents an unambiguous encapsulation of a bug that
can be added to a bug report (no more unreproducible bugs). Finally,
VMware Workstation builds on deterministic replay to provide an
abstraction of reverse execution to help developers more naturally move
backward from the manifestation of a bug to its origin.
This breakout session broadly discusses the benefits of developing and
testing in virtual environments and demonstrates the application of the
Integrated Virtual Debugger (a Visual Studio plugin included with VMware
Workstation) to the resolution of challenging debugging problems.

Desktop Virtualization

Breakout Session

Development, Testing, VMware Workstation, Integrated Virtual Debugger

1 Hour

E Christopher Lewis, Staff Engineer, VMware, Inc.
Prashant Dhamdhere, Senior Member of Technical Staff, VMware, Inc.