Team Foundation Services (TFS) on Azure Offers New Option for Microsoft Dynamics Development Teams

Microsoft's Team Foundation Services, an Azure-based version of the Microsoft's Team Foundation Server (TFS) platform for collaborative software development projects, has been available since September, but as Sebastian Wakmundzki notes on his blog, it is still an invitation-only beta product.  

TFS has been around for some time as an on-premise for source control, data collection, reporting, and project tracking on collaborative software development projects.  The Azure-based TFS includes all of this as well, with the latest features around team management, build automation, and testing, and it integrates with Visual Studio 2010 and the 2011 preview, as well as Eclipse.

TFS is already a commonly used development team tool that supports agile development practices in its on-premise form for Microsoft Dynamics developers who work with Visual Studio.  According to Microsoft Dynamics AX MVP Dick Wenning of Crimsonwing, TFS is a key tool in application lifecycle management (ALM) for his development teams. Dick will be diving into this topic on Dynamics AX Day of Decisions Fall 2011.

According to Wakmundzki, at AlfaPeople, his firm, Dynamics CRM development teams already use TFS on-premise for all client engagements.  He notes that just turning TFS into a SaaS offering is an important accomplishment for Microsoft and should increase utilization of the development project tools and maintain one of their key advantages over competing products - tight integration to Visual Studio. "It looks really good and it supports developers using Visual studio 2010 and people trying the Visual Studio 2011 preview," he said.

Since Team Foundation Service is still in beta, pricing ...