Advantage of using TFS over third party tools combination for entire software Lifecycle.

Question

I need to pitch-in for using of Team Foundation Server 2008 as a complete Lifecycle management tool including Requirements, Source control, Daily builds, Test Cases integration, Bug tracking.

Please help me with some of the advantages of using TFS over some of the cheaper third party tools like say, Tortoise/SVN + BugTracker + CruiseControl. I understand that these combination can be at least equal to TFS and less in cost. Still please let me know some of the TFS features that will be advantageous over such third party tools.

Answer 1

There is no pitch - for 2008 (WAY too complicated). 2010 - that is easy: it is INTEGRATED and SUPPORTED FROM MICROSOFT. Basically it is a complete stack from Visual Studio to the backend, including office integration. This has serious advantages.

Yes, you can put things together for all that, but try to get proper support for that, and you will spend a lot of time. For example, with integration - including rules like gated checkins (2010).

2008 you will have serious problems making an argument - it is simly too expensive and hard to manage.

Answer 2

I'll disagree a bit with @TomTom here, but not by much.

First off, if you're even starting to think about a TFS installation, go with 2010. Though there's an upgrade path from 2008 to 2010, it's just not worth the effort you'll need to go through to get there. With 2010, you get a much easier installation, server-side compatibility with more operating system versions (e.g. Windows 7) for single and small-number-of-user installations, even better integration into Visual Studio and other tools.

Now, to address your question as to why not go with the various tools. . . The answer is simple: Integration. It's there with 2008, it's even better with 2010. If you use TFS correctly, you can use it to manage every aspect of your application lifecycle, including requirements, code development, testing, and SDLC reporting. And the great thing is, all aspects of the lifecycle can be linked from one part of the process to another. It becomes really difficult to do that if you're using SVN for your repository and FogBugz for your bug tracking, and spreadsheets for your requirements (etc.).