Team Foundation Server - plays well with others...

  • Article

Team Foundation Server (TFS) has become widely popular both within our Visual Studio suite of tools and in integrating from both client and server side scenarios. 

Given that most of the world lives and runs an heterogeneous environment, we know that developers have a wide variety of diverse development tools and need to be able to store and access their artifacts no matter what tool they are using or what platform they are targeting.

The client side scenarios mostly involve integrating with an existing application development environment so that artifacts created in those environments can be managed in TFS. A few examples of this type of integration are:

· Teamprise - a partner-provided solution for working with TFS from non-Windows platforms and for working with TFS from Eclipse on Windows

· MSSCCI client for TFS - an implementation of an IDE extensibility model that allows version control systems to plug into various IDEs enabling integration with tools such as VB6, VC6, VS2003, PowerBuilder, etc. 

The latest example of a client side integration scenario was released recently with Microsoft Dynamics. This integration enables developers of Dynamics applications to use TFS to store their source code and have the experience integrated into their IDE. They are looking at even deeper integration in their next version. You can learn more about Dynamics AX 2009 here and read a whitepaper on how to set up TFS for Dynamics AX here. 

Here are a few screenshots to show some of the integration points:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Integrated Development Environment in Dynamics AX 2009:

 

 

The server-side scenarios are about integrating TFS with other ALM solutions. Examples include:

· TFS Migration & Synchronization toolkit - an open source library of functionality that allows customers and partners to build tools for synchronizing TFS with another system, or for migrating from that other system to TFS

· ClearCase Synchronization tool - a tool that will synchronize a ClearCase repository with TFS Version Control allowing teams to work in either environment

· HP Quality Center Synchronization - a tool that we’re currently investing in that will allow a team of testers working in QC to collaborate with a team of developers working in TFS by synchronizing bug records between the two systems.

Update (2/16/2011): HP has released tool to synchronize TFS with HP Quality Center and we’ve accordingly de-prioritized our own investments in this space. If you’re looking for a solution for synchronizing between TFS and Quality Center, take a look at this.

All of these integrations get us closer to ensuring that everyone can participate in team development with Team Foundation Server regardless of their environment.

Namaste!