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It's official - Microsoft has announced a new team edition for Visual Studio Team System... The Team Edition for Database Professionals adds great capabilities to help with the configuration management, tracking, collaboration, testing (etc.) of your SQL Server 2000 and 2005 databases. I had the privilege of seeing a demo a few days ago and it is going the be a great addition to the VSTS family. I was really impressed by both the configuration management and the testing capabilities. But simply that this acknowledges another important role and helps to integrate them with the rest of the VSTS team is exciting in itself.
If you've been sitting on the fence over whether to buy Suite or stick with a single edition, perhaps this new announcement will win you over to Team Suite.
For the official announcement, refer to:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/may06/05-31VSDatabasePR.mspx
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Just in case you're instested, I'm presenting an MSDN webcast on the project management features of Visual Studio Team System later today. It is 2PM Central time (3 Eastern, noon Pacific, ...). If you want to check it out or otherwise want more info, the link is:
http://www.microsoft.com/communities/eventdetails.mspx?CMTYSvcSource=MSCOMMedia&Params=%7eCMTYDataSvcParams%5e%7earg+Name%3d%22ID%22+Value%3d%221032295855%22%2f%5e%7earg+Name%3d%22ProviderID%22+Value%3d%22A6B43178-497C-4225-BA42-DF595171F04C%22%2f%5e%7earg+Name%3d%22lang%22+Value%3d%22en%22%2f%5e%7earg+Name%3d%22cr%22+Value%3d%22US%22%2f%5e%7esParams%5e%7e%2fsParams%5e%7e%2fCMTYDataSvcParams%5e
(How's that for an ugly URL)
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The directory-based web site model in ASP.NET 2.0 is pretty slick and I like it, but it isn't for everyone. If you're used to having a project file to manage the project contents and references, moving to the "everything in the directory is in the project" model may be disconcerting. The ASP.NET team has released Web Application Projects to extend VS2005 and provide the ASP.NET project model you're used to in VS.NET 2003. Here is the release announcement from Scott Guthrie's blog:
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2006/05/08/445742.aspx
I've used is to both help clients migrating from VS.NET 2003 and for clients wanting easier control of their build process. Since the Web Application Projects as MSBuild compliant, it is easy to get them working under Visual Studio Team System and Team Build!
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I just finished a migration from Visual Source Safe to Team Foundation Version Control and thought I’d share some of my opinions about the process. This post covers the overview and I’ll try to share my experiences as additional small separate focused posts.
Note that I am describing keeping your code in .NET 1.1 even though you will use TFVC as your version control repository; of course it is better if you have the luxury of moving your code to .NET 2.0 and all of the other great tools (including Visual Studio Team System) avaialable in that environment.
Here is the general approach I’ve used:
- Evaluate all of the tools and make sure you’re comfortable with how things work before going into productionJ. Although obvious, you should try this in a lab environment before going full-force into your ‘production’ development environment.
- Download and install the tools that you will use going forward. In my case this included compatibility tools to allow .NET 1.1 development with Team Foundation Version Control, including:
- The MSSCCI provider for TFVC. This plug-in allows you to use Visual Studio 2003 (or VB6 or VC++ 6, or …) with Team Foundation Server as a back-end for version control. Download from: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=87e1ffbd-a484-4c3a-8776-d560ab1e6198&DisplayLang=en
- “MSBee” to help using MSBuild and Team Build with the .NET 1.1 Framework. Download from http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/downloads/tools/msbee/default.aspx
- I needed and you may also want some additional community build tasks to support your build process: http://msbuildtasks.tigris.org/
- Install and configure the aforementioned downloads along with Team Explorer and Team Foundation Server.
- Use VSS Converter to migrate your source control. I’ll definitely have a post on my experiences on this subject.
- Rebind your projects from VSS to TFVC. Again, this merits a separate post.
- Validate your applications including check-in, check-out, policy enforcement and anything else that will affect your daily development experience.
- Once you’ve verified this in your lab environment, you can train all of your users and do it again in your ‘production’ development environment.
I’ve skipped over a lot of things that you should do in any TFS implementation, including selection and first-pass customization of your process template, which you should do before rolling into production.
Good luck with you migration and check back for more information!