Skip to main content

What is Visual Studio Team System?

Microsoft's marketing engine IMO, missed the mark branding and naming Team System. (To their defense, it's tough to understand this product line and communicate its vast functionality.) I've seen these products referred to as Team System, Team Suite, Team Edition, and a host of other monikers. To help clear up the confusion, here's a brief write-up and a link to Wikipedia which [I hope] offers a clear explanation.

Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition - The Integrated Development Environment (IDE) technology workers use to accomplish work. There are five "editions", each targeted to a particular role:
  • Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Software Developers
  • Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Software Testers
  • Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals
  • Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Software Architects
  • Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite - This edition encompasses the functionality of the other four. It's an extra $1200 but I recommend it. The crossover value is well worth the money.
Team Foundation Server - This server-based product enables the collaboration amongst members of the software project team (presumably using Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition). Known as simply TFS (sometimes prefixed with Visual Studio), it provides functionality such as version control, automated building of source, task (or Work Item) tracking, collaboration and project management through Sharepoint, reporting, and data analysis.

Visual Studio 2005 Team Test Load Agent - This add-on module leveraged by Visual Studio simulates virtual users against a web site. It is used in conjunction with the Web Test functionality within Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Software Testers.

Visual Studio Team System - This moniker refers to the entire line of products...including all of the above: Visual Studio Team Edition, TFS, and the Load Agent. It is not a product per se but a line. I.e. one cannot purchase Team System, one purchases the individual components of Team System.

Wikipedia Team System Entry

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

TFS Reports Out of Date

You may have noticed it takes a while for Team Foundation Server (TFS) reports to reflect changes you've made to work items or builds. Let me guess...about an hour, right? Out of the box, TFS is set to refresh the data warehouse from its transactional store every 60 minutes. How do I change the frequency of the data warehouse refresh? Browse to the TFS Controller Web Service on your TFS application tier server within IE at: http://localhost:8080/Warehouse/v1.0/warehousecontroller.asmx Select the ChangeSetting option Enter RunIntervalSeconds for the settingId and the desired number of seconds for newValue (300 for 5 minutes...5*60) Select Invoke How do I force a data warehouse refresh? Two methods here: either via the above web service or using SQL Server Management Studio. Via the web service: Browse to the TFS Controller Web Service within IE at: http://localhost:8080/Warehouse/v1.0/warehousecontroller.asmx Select the Run option Click Invo...

Rollback a Ooops in TFS with TFPT Rollback

Rhut roe, Raggie. You just checked in a merge operation affecting 100's of files in TFS against the wrong branch. Ooops. Well, you can simply roll it back, right? Select the folder in Source Control Explorer and...hey, where's the Rollback? Rollback isn't supported in TFS natively. However, it is supported within the Power Tools leveraging the command-line TFPT.exe utility. It's fairly straightforward to revert back to a previous version--with one caveot. First, download and install the Team Foundation Power Tools 2008 on your workstation. Before proceeding, let's create a workspace dedicated to the rollback. To "true up" the workspace, the rollback operation will peform a Get Latest for every file in your current workspace. This can consume hours (and many GB) with a broad workspace mapping. To work around this, I create a temporary workspace targeted at just the area of source I need to roll back. So let's drill down on our scenario... I'm worki...

VSTS 2008 Data-Driven Web Test

During a client demo this afternoon, I mind-blanked on creating a data-driven web test. Sure enough, I stepped out of the client offices and figured it out. Super. But, I think it's counterintuitive enough to outline in a blog post (...trying to make myself feel better ;-). Somewhat in my defense, I was thinking about data-driven unit tests. These, IMO, are easy to implement. Data-driven web tests are a bit more effort and challenging. Create a web test: Right-mouse on your test project selecting Add >> Web Test. Use the browser recorder to capture your web test scenario. Let's assume you're submitting an age and credit rating to an insurance rate calculator...similar to the screen capture below: Create a table or CSV file (comma-delimited...just use Excel and save as CSV) with relevant headings for your inputs and expected values: From Solution Explorer, double-click on your web test. In the main window, right-mouse on your web test selecting Add Data Sou...