TFS Integration Platform – Goes “BETA”

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The TFS Integration Platform has finally switched from “ALPHA” state to “BETA” state, which is a huge milestone. The goals for the BETA release, as outlined on the Codeplex site are:

Goal of the Beta Release

For different software projects, terms like "Alpha" and "Beta" often have different meanings. For this project, the intent of the Beta release is as follows:

  • Transparent development of the TFS Integration Platform and related tools - The TFS Integration Platform is the foundation for tools that migrate and synchronize data with TFS. The Beta release includes adapters for TFS 2005, TFS 2008 and TFS 2010 along with the tools needed to migrate data to TFS. The Beta release continues the pattern of transparent development on the path to an RTW release with regular drops of the source and binaries for the tools.
  • Stable SDK - The bar for changes to the TFS Integration Platform is now higher with the Beta release. We have gone through a scrub of the public interface and plan to carefully consider and communicate any breaking changes. Gathering feedback from developers on the SDK is an objective of the Beta release.
  • Limited Production Use - Every release of the TFS Integration Platform posted to this site is deployed as part of a Microsoft-internal TFS to TFS synchronization solution shortly before release. The tools still have some rough edges and demand careful testing prior to production use, but are generally intended to be at a high quality level. We are looking for feedback in our forum from users of the tools to ensure that we meet end user expectation.

What does this mean in terms of guidance and documentation?

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We are now in a position to revise and lock down both the guidance and product documentation, after a period of playing a continuous catch-up game as feature changes changed the environment with every release. CAUTION: The documentation which is included in the current BETA release is slightly out of date. We are planning regular updates of the documentation in the near future, adding a wealth of new guidance and technical documentation to the existing content.

Well done team! Now for the next milestone …

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