Mike Douglas on Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server 2010
This month we sat down with Mike Douglas, Deliveron Solution Consultant, to discuss the upcoming release of Visual Studio and
Team Foundation Server 2010.
Q. What is all the hype about with the upcoming release?
A. There are significant improvements across the spectrum with the upcoming release. First, .NET 4.0 has significant improvements in
areas of multithreading, dynamic language support, and declarative programming support. Second, Visual Studio 2010 has been completely
rewritten in WPF with better support for SharePoint, Silverlight, and WPF development. Third, Team Foundation Server 2010 is a major
update to previous versions including new features such as hierarchical work items, Gated Check-Ins, and better Agile process
templates. Along with the new features, there are a number of deployment improvements including a new product called Lab Management
2010 that supports provisioning virtual test environments.
Q. Sounds like a major release. When is it supposed to be released?
A. Yes, this is probably one of the largest development platform releases. The official launch date is April 12, 2010. One of the
great things about this release is that Microsoft has taken the proper steps to deliver the right product at the right time. In fact,
VS2010 has been available to download since PDC 2008.
Q. Does .NET 4.0 still require .NET 2.0 like .Net 3.x?
A. .NET 4.0 is a full fledge release and doesn’t require .Net 2.0 like .Net 3.x.
Q. What deployment improvements are there in TFS 2010?
A. First, TFS 2010 fully supports the 64-bit architecture and can be installed on 32-bit or 64-bit servers. TFS 2010 also supports Network Load Balancing (NLB) on the application tier to support high loads and fail overs without any intervention. Second, TFS 2010 also introduces a new level isolation called Project Collections which means Team Projects within a Team Project Collection are completely isolated from Team Projects in another Team Project Collection and have their own database that can be stored on separate servers. Finally, Microsoft has made managing the configuration of TFS 2010 much more intuitive and has separated it from the installation process.
Q. Does everyone have to upgrade to Visual Studio 2010 to use TFS 2010?
A. No. This is another great feature of TFS 2010. Developers can continue to use VS 2005 and VS 2008 to access TFS 2010. There is a simple update that needs to be run before connecting and not all functionality is available but the day to day features will work just fine. Visual Studio 2010 will also run side by side with Visual 2005 or Visual 2008.
Q. What are the Agile improvements?
A. TFS 2010 includes a number of improvements for Agile development teams. The new Agile process template uses terms that Agile teams are familiar with such as “Velocity,” “Iterations,” “User Stories,” “Points,” and “Tasks.” There are also Iteration and Project Backlog Worksheets, new reports, and dashboard improvements in SharePoint.
Q. What are the testing improvements?
A. Visual Studio 2010 introduces Lab Management 2010 and Test Professional 2010 to remove the silos between QA professionals and developers to establish a more cohesive development and testing process. Together these products include tools and features for creating test plans, creating and running manual tests, automated UI testing, creating test virtual environments, recording manual tests, and collecting diagnostic and error data to easily include with bugs.
Q. Do companies have to wait for the launch of Visual Studio and TFS 2010 to start using it?
A. No, the Release To Manufacturers (RTM) is very close and will be the final release when it is available for download. If you want to start using Visual Studio 2010 and TFS 2010 before the RTM, there has been a go-live license available since beta 2. This means it is fully supported by Microsoft and there is a supported upgrade path for the final release.
Q. Licensing with Visual Studio 2008 and TFS 2008 was confusing with all of the different editions. Have they made this any easier in 2010?
A. Yes! Microsoft has made this much simpler with only three editions of Visual Studio: Professional, Premium, and Ultimate. Furthermore, TFS is now included with the MSDN license so there is no additional cost for it.
Q. Is there a new version of source safe? Some small development teams don’t have a development server.
A. TFS 2010 is a complete replacement for SourceSafe. There is a basic installation option when installing TFS that allows users to install it on Vista and Windows 7 clients in addition to all of the server OS versions and editions. However, the basic installation only installs the source control repository without the reporting and SharePoint features.
Q. How can companies learn more about Visual Studio 2010 and TFS 2010?
A. Feel free to contact me at tfs@deliveron.com or at 402-238-1399 and I will be happy to answer any questions you have. Also you can visit the Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 website.