Visual Studio Team switches views
Let's assume your .NET development team is already using the following set of tools in their processes:
- Subversion / TortoiseSVN / VisualSVN (source control)
- NUnit (unit testing)
- Open source wiki
- Proprietary bug tracking system that pays for
You're happy with Subversion and NUnit, but dislike the Wiki and bug tracking. You would also like to add a little lightweight project management software (like Fogbugz / Trac) - it shouldn't be free, but obviously cheaper.
Can you make a compelling case for using VSTS, either to add missing features, or to replace disliked software, or to handle everything (including source control)? Is the integration of all these features more than the sum of the parts, or would it just be better to acquire and replace parts that you either don't like or don't have?
I remember looking at VSTS a few years ago and thinking it was terribly expensive and not much better than many of the free options, but I assume Microsoft is still working on it?
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VSTS is great if you do everything in it. Unfortunately, the price hasn't improved over the years. :( CAL is still ridiculously expensive. The only improvement is if a person only uses the work item system and only works with their own work items (no peeking at other work items!) then there is no need for a CAL. This makes it a little easier to use as an external bugreport system. However, it leaves a lot to be desired in this area.
One way to reduce costs is to become a Microsoft Certified Partner. If you are a simple partner, you get 5 VS / TFS licenses for free; if you are a Gold Certifiend partner you get 25 (if memory doesn't help me). This should be enough for most companies. But getting Gold status can be tricky depending on what you do.
If you don't like these two parts, then maybe your best bet is to find replacements for everything instead? There are many wiki systems, some to your liking. The same can be said for errors.
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We are very happy not only with the tools, but also with the integration of the Team Team Server and various teams. We previously used Borland StarTeam to source control and track issues with a third party wiki whose name eludes me at the moment.
It's time for us to renew our licensing and support agreement with Borland, only to find out that the cost of adding users to our license and updating the product will cost us (a little more, actually) than biting a bullet and making a switch. It should be borne in mind that you usually pay for development tools, so the cost is partially absorbed by our budget.
We also didn't feel the need to get a Team Suite for every person. You might want to consider considering it for developers, but other disciplines really don't have the benefit of using all the tools in most companies.
We were able to get the corresponding team versions for twelve people, enough CAL for 50 users (for Team Explorer, Teamprise, Team Project Portals, Team Web Access), Teamprise for the five Mac users we have, and Team Foundation Server software for less six digits. Considering that this includes the developer tools we usually buy, this was not a bad thing.
The initial cost of the new licensing also covered two years, so we could split the budget between FY 2008 and FY09. It is very important to ensure that licenses are not terminated as license renewals were a fraction of the initial cost and also included version upgrades.
As for the features, we are in the process of being deployed. About half of our department has finished training and I have already started translating projects. The development team absolutely love the features and the tight integration with their workflow. Version control is a latch, and work items (and associated report artifacts) are extensible to the nth power. The fact that TFS relies heavily on providing sane document management helps tie all processes to a level that you simply cannot get with multiple vendors.
My absolute favorite is the extensibility model. Using the Team Foundation Server API, you can easily write registration policies, write tools to interact with the system, develop plugins, and more. We are already seeing gains in performance and quality for our products with minimal implementation.
However, Team Build is on the horizon. I have yet to create a build project, but it seems painless and painless. Time will tell...: -)Edit - I forgot to mention that our migration to TFS includes licensing for the Test Boot agent. The load testing functionality in Team Test is one of, if not the best I've seen.
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Where I am, we settled on the following:
- SVN for source control
- Redmine for bug tracking and wiki
- NUnit for unit testing
- CruiseControl.NET for our build server
Redmine is an open source Ruby on Rails application that supports multiple projects much better than Trac and seems to be much easier to administer.It is definitely worth checking out.
VSTS seems to be too much money compared to other products. As an added benefit, you also get access with open source solutions, which allows you to modify things to suit your needs if the possibilities don't already exist.
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I would stick with SVN and use trac or bugzilla or fogbugz. You can also try a C&C server trial. It doesn't cost money in my opinion. MS had their chances with version control and screwed it up a long time ago. Too late to the party if you ask me, and to be honest, I'm not impressed with how they try to control your entire IDE development experience with "integration" into source control. I prefer perforce / SVN and a split defect tracking solution.
For all that, you probably can't go wrong with any of the following:
bugzilla or trac or fogbugz AND SVN MS team thingamabob
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