Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server (TFS) is Microsoft's core offering for Application Lifecycle Management (ALM), providing version control, a build system, and tools and metrics for managing and organizing projects with a strong focus on collaboration.

By using the suite of tools in Visual Studio Premium and Visual Studio Ultimate, and combining those tools with TFS, you can apply proven practices to manage your Application's Lifecycle, from understanding customer needs through code design and implementation to deployment.

You can use the instrumentation in these tools to trace requirements to checked-in code, builds and test results. These practices can help your team create software that is valued by your customers and that is faster and more reliable, while improving team dynamics and synergies to take your organisation into the future.

TFS is a solid foundation for a successful team!

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TFS CAN BE AN INDISPENSIBLE PART OF ANY TEAM SIZE, FROM 1 TO MANY.

On small teams, key components include version control and work item management. Version control should be incorporated when developing projects of any size. Work item management gives you a direction and a good indicator of progress.

New with TFS 2010, once you purchase TFS either through an MSDN subscription or Retail, you have the option to install what is called a “basic” or “workgroup” edition of TFS that gives you a smaller subset of the functionality, but allows you up to 5 named users, without the requirement to purchase a Client Access License (or CAL) for each user affording you a lower cost to entry.

As the team becomes larger, the functionality leveraged expands to governance and compliance, including check-in policies, gated check-ins and continuous builds, not to mention the testing capability that is a part of Premium and Ultimate editions of Visual Studio.

No team or project is too big or too small to use TFS and Visual Studio for high quality, predictable delivery.

View this post for a comparison of the Visual Studio editions

WHERE TO GET TFS AND VISUAL STUDIO...

Purchase TFS and Visual Studio through Team Foundation Consulting, or reduce the high upfront cost of TFS through our TFS rental option,  Outsourced Infrastructure.

ALM is a continuous process of managing the life of an application through governance, development and maintenance.

ALM is the marriage of business management to software engineering made possible by tools such as TFS that facilitate and integrate requirements management, architecture, coding, testing, tracking, and release management.

TFS is by no means the only ALM suite, but it does offer a wide range of functionality, extended API and customizability that gives even the substantially more expensive suit a run for its money!

All this plus the tight integration into Visual Studio (and now Eclipse) makes it an intuitive and organic toolset aimed at every member in the team, accomplishing the production of word class applications.

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As a small company, can TFS benefit my bottom line?

As a management tool, TFS increases end-to-end visibility, giving greater insight into problem areas and actual speed of delivery. This "stream lining" of the development processes is especially a requirement for smaller companies that cannot afford to lose money in rework and misalignment.

Why pay for TFS when I can use something like Subversion for free?

TFS has source control as a component of the complete suite. In addition to source control you get Work item management, Continuous integration and build management, reporting, native integration into the development platforms (Visual Studio) and MS Excel, MS Project and you get team collaboration with the integration into SharePoint. In the open source market you would have to build up a suite of separate applications performing each of these tasks and then try and get them to work together for the simplest of reporting. In addition to this, you would need staff to administer and configure all the separate tools. TFS comes as a complete, extendable package.

What is the difference between VSS (Visual Source Safe) and Team Foundation Server?

VSS is an early application that is purely geared towards source control. VSS has limitations and is often difficult to maintain. Microsoft's mainstream support for VSS is ending in April 2011. TFS is an Application Lifecycle Management suite which, in addition to Source Control , includes work item management and tracking, build automation, extensive reporting and team collaboration using SharePoint, just to mention a few.

How well does TFS cope with volume and load?

Microsoft(R) has taken the concept of "dog fooding" to a new level. Currently one of the largest known TFS installations is the Developer division with a database size in excess of 16 TB. Go here to see some of the volumes that TFS is currently handling.

Why a better utilisation of TFS?

When utilised incorrectly or partially, as is often the case, TFS becomes a stumbling block, offering little insight into improving the way you currently do business and manage your organisation. TFS was intended by Microsoft to be a tool which effortlessly controls the entire Application Lifecycle, allowing developers, managers and analysts to improve all aspects of the process, through the insight provided by TFS. When utilised correctly and to its full capacity, TFS will do all of the above while forming an integral part of your team's foundation.