Rick LaPlante's WebLog

Unisys ES7000/600 for data tier scales TFS to over 3500 users

Unisys has graciously lent us a great 8 way machine to test out how TFS handles substantial loads (ie the entire developer division).  Brian Harry's blog has all the data about how using performance tests we see we can scale to over 3500 people on the dual server implementation using the ES7000/600.  We are working w/ Unisys to procure one of these machines to run the entire developer division's next version of engineering on top of TFS.  that will be exciting!

Check out Brian's blog for the details.

-Rick

Team Foundation Server new supported user numbers

After many months of testing and re-testing we're proud to announce that the previous "up to 500 users" per server (dual server config) was dramatically underestimated and we're not up'ing that to up to 2000 users per server (dual server config).  Brian Harry has all the details at his blog here.                  

nice...

-Rick

VSTS Roll based skus (clients) RTM!!

it is with TREMENDOUS pleasure that I say we've released the version 1.0 of VSTS roll bases skus to manufacturing and you can immediately (if the servers aren't buried anyway) download them from the MSDN subscriber section.  We've also released a matched set of TFS server (beta 3 refresh) which will allow the RTM clients to connect to the server.  The server also has a few setup issues addressed to continue to improve that scenario.  We continue to be very confident that the server RTM will be in Q1 '06 to complete the release v1 wave of the entire Team System.

This has been a long 5+ year journey for many of us on the team to expand the way Microsoft views developer tools and we could not have done it without the support and encouragement of our customers.  Whenever it felt like we'd never finish up and get this out the door, we were reminded about the excitement in the community among our customers anticipating the value that this tool set would drive for them and we pushed on. 

I am very proud of the team and all of the hard work they've put in over the years to start from an idea and some internal tools and turn it into something truly special.  We hope you all enjoy it!

-Rick

 

take the TFS Setup survey

Last week i asked if you would take a few minutes to respond to a survey about TFS setup.  thanks to those of you that did (we had great turnout).  We learned some new things and  overall we heard that we're definitely moving in the right direction.  We've done even more setup work with the beta 3 refresh so i'm sure we'll be asking for your experience once you've installed that as well.

 

thanks!

-Rick

 

 

why beta 3 now?

A couple folks have asked me why we released beta 3 now when we could have waited a month and released it with RTM versions of the runtime & sql server. the answer is simply our customers don't want to wait, the quality was ready to start go live. we know that lots of people are looking to beta 3 to start their serious pilot projects and they can do that now, and switch to the refresh bits when the RTM version is ready. So long as we're clear with people that they will need to update to the refresh when it comes out, i think by and large most are very happy we're released earlier rather than waiting for the RTM.

let me know if you think this is nutty...

-Rick

TFS Beta 3 Released

Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server Beta 3 will be available tonight on the MSDN subscriber download center.  We finalized the bits a couple days ago and they should be propagated to servers and be ready for download this evening.

 

This release of TFS is feature complete and high quality (ready for operational deployment).  The only feature additions now will be via customer driven feedback. Several things you should know about this release:

• This release of TFS works only with Visual Studio 2005 Release Candidate 1 that we made available to MSDN subscribers and PDC attendees last week. 
• This release is based on the September SQL Server 2005 Community Technology Preview also made available to PDC attendees last week. 
• TFS Beta 3 includes a Go-Live license as well as product support (details below).  Users may sign up for a click-through Go-Live license (which will be available w/in a couple days… still waiting for final legal approval).
• TFS Beta 3 will not be localized into languages other than US English.
• Anyone who "goes live" with TFS Beta 3 will need to update their server and client deployments to the TFS Beta 3 Refresh when it’s available because TFS Beta 3 will not work with the final RTM bits.  You will need the TFS Beta 3 Refresh to work with the RTM bits.

TFS Beta 3 Refresh

 

We will release a Beta 3 Refresh which synchronizes TFS with the final RTM bits of VS/SQL.  This release will be available to MSDN subscribers for download from the MSDN download center.  It will also be available in the Visual Studio 2005 Team System Trial Edition kit that will be available beginning with our November 7, 2005 launch.  It will also be available to all users of the Team System client products. 

 

The TFS Beta 3 Refresh will be available in localized languages at the same time as the Team System products are themselves available in other localized languages.  The English Beta 3 Refresh bits will be available in about a month or so, coinciding with the release of the final RTM version of Visual Studio 2005 (because the server needs to sync with the final RTM versions of SQL Server 2005 and VS 2005).  TFS Beta 3 Refresh will also include a Go-Live license and product support. 

 

In addition, all data stored in TFS Beta 3 will migrate seamlessly and in-place to TFS Beta 3 Refresh and then to the RTM version of TFS.

 

Product Support

 

Product support for TFS Beta 3 and the TFS Beta 3 Refresh is available for MSDN Universal and Enterprise customers as well as those customers who purchased (or upgraded to) any Visual Studio Team System client product with an MSDN Premium Subscription.  Note: it’s important to remember that while we will encourage customers to “Go-Live” on TFS Beta 3 and TFS Beta 3 Refresh, the Go-Live license does not confer a license to the final version of TFS…  you still have to purchase licenses for the RTM version of the server.  Just want to be clear on that.

 

$64,000 Question

 

Of course, the question everyone wants to know is, are we still on track for Q1 2006.  The answer is yes.  Releasing a high quality, feature complete TFS Beta 3 was a critical step in being ready for Q1 and we still feel good about that commitment. 

 

-Rick

 

 

Posted by rickla | 4 Comments

Rickla VS2005 worldwide launch events schedule

I know we're getting close to launch when I start getting assignments for keynote talks at worldwide launch events.  I will be in Lisbon, Portugal on November 7th, and Oslo, Norway on the 10th.  I'm hoping to make a trip over to Milan to see a few customers early the following week as well. 

Hope to see many of you there (well, if you live in Portugal or Norway, anyway).  I wonder how the weather is in Norway in November...  perhaps a little snowmobiling side trip???

Anyway, sounds like the events should be excellent w/ 1500+ in each location and lots of great content to kick off a fantastic product.

-Rick

VSTS Client SKUs reach RC1, TFS readying Beta 3

Yesterday Soma posted an entry that we have made available the first Release Candidate of Visual Studio 2005.  This Release Candidate already includes the client/role based portions of the new Visual Studio 2005 Team System, including Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite.  We are also readying the availability of Beta 3 of Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server, the server component of Visual Studio 2005 Team System.  Currently I think we're about 14 days out on those bits so we're very close.

 

With the RTM versions of the client/role based skus coupled w/ the Beta 3 version of Team Foundation Server you can driver enterprise grade collaboration that will enable development teams to communicate and collaborate more effectively.  Using the RTM/Beta 3 mix you will be able to:

 

• Use Work Items to communicate information about bugs, requirements, status, deliverables and more
• Use built-in Reporting and Analytics, based on SQL Server 2005, to gain accurate information about your project’s health and obtain greater predictability throughout the development process
• Use enterprise-grade source code control to maintain the largest, most complex source code bases
• Use built-in Process Guidance to manage the software development lifecycle most efficiently

 

Over the last several months, we have been using Team Foundation Server internally within the Visual Studio Team System team.  During that timeframe, we have stressed this product in many of the same ways that we expect our customers to and have extraordinary confidence in its quality, reliability, and performance.  For example, the Team System team has used Team Foundation Server to maintain:

 

• nearly 500 active users on the Team System project
• 6 active sites (Redmond, Fargo, Raleigh, Copenhagen, India, China)
• nearly 10,000 changeset checkins over the last 10 months (and about 1700 changesets  in the last 4 weeks)
• Nearly 550,000 files
• 10M+ lines of code
• 47GB of assets under management

 

This Beta 3 release of Team Foundation Server will include a GoLive license as well as product support.  It will be made available for MSDN subscribers to download from the MSDN download area.  Non-subscribers will be able to order the Beta 3 of Team Foundation Server as part of the Visual Studio 2005 Trial Edition beginning at the November 7^th launch of Visual Studio 2005.

 

Over the coming months we will continue to lock down the Team Foundation Server to prepare it for the most rigorous use both by our customers and within Microsoft.  As we’ve stated earlier, we expect to ship the final version of Team Foundation Server in the first quarter of next year.  We are committed to ensuring safe and in place migration of data from Team Foundation Server Beta 3 to the final version of Team Foundation Server.

 

I want to thank all of our customers and partners for helping us get to this important milestone in the release cycle of Visual Studio 2005.  We think we’ve built something pretty special with these products, and the excitement and enthusiasm we’re seeing from all our customers is nothing short of phenomenal.

 

-Rick

TFS version included with role based skus

I've recieved several requests about any limitations to the "5 user" version of TFS that is going to be included in each role based sku.  The questions basically boil down to "i hear there may be other feature differences, can you comment?".  The answer is there is no feature differentiation.  Nore is there any time limitation or period for the server.  The TFS server included is a fully functional version of TFS, limited to 5 user accounts.  There WILL be a Trial Edition of VSTS limited to 180 days, so perhaps that's where the confusion arises from, but the included version in the roles will not be time limited.

 

-Rick 

VS 2005 RTM November 7th and TFS Beta 3

Some of you may have seen from Soma's blog that we are confirming that VS 2005 (including the VSTS role based skus) will RTM November 7th.  Everyone here has been working hard to get the bugs fixed and the fit and finish into the product for several months and to now be this close to the RTM of version 1.0 is very exciting for us and for our customers.  We also announced that we will release a beta 3 of the Team Foundation Server in September and enable all customers to go live (deploy into production) with those bits.  We will carry all of the data forward to the RTM version of the server, which we've said will follow the client (VSTS role based skus) RTM by 60-90 days.  Many customers who were experiementing with TFS Beta 2 reported major performance problems from the IDE in Beta 2 and those have been fixed in Beta 3 where the IDE performance is near parity with the command line performance (which has been very fast).

I've already had a few people ask me how the staged release of TFS impacts role out of VSTS broadly to organizations so i'll try and address broadly here.

• the final beta 3 version of TFS will work with the RTM bits of VSTS clients. 
• Customers who purchase the role based skus will be able to use the beta 3 TFS in production environment (today we have over 30 teams inside & outside of MS using TFS and VSTS in production)
• We will provide support for TFS beta 3 for premier customers who've purchased the VSTS clients
• We will release the RTM bits of TFS with a 60-90 day delta from client RTM
• The TFS RTM install will continue to use all of the data/files customers have accumulated with the go-live version of Beta 3 with no data loss.

-Rick

 

 

new Team System blogger

Jeff Beehler, who manages all releases of the Team System just started a blog.  In terms of people "in the know" of how we use, built, and decide when to release CTPs, Beta drops, and RTM bits, Jeff is the guy to listen to and ask questions of.  He used to teach 5th grade in between stints at MS so he's got a lot of experience in managing chaos and working w/ unrully people... :)

Check out his blog here.

-Rick

 

listening to customers

On my first post I promised that we'd try and listen to your feedback and let it influence our thinking.  I said back then and I'll say again that we won't always agree on what the "right" course of action is, but we will certainly listen and try and make changes where appropriate.

Fast forward a few months...  when we heard several very important things from you all during our initial rollout of the Team System pricing and licensing.  I'm happy to say that we've listened and changed our plans to address your concerns.  We know you want as much advance notice as possible regarding product changes because you need to plan accordingly.  Sometimes when we go out so early, though, we don't have all the answers completely nailed and this was one of those times.   Now that we've had a chance to internalized your feedback and concerns, here are a set of concrete things we're doing to address them: 

• One area where we received a lot of feedback was from smaller organizations looking to use Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server.  The ability to amortize the cost of the server over a large number of devs makes the Server exceptionally cheap on a per seat basis when you are thinking 20, 50, 100, 500 people per server.  However when you are talking about 3 people on the server, well we can all do the math.  To help address this issue, we will place a limited version of Team Foundation Server in each Visual Studio Team System role edition.  This version will be restricted to a maximum of five users and should serve the needs of smaller organizations.  Teams that have a need for more users should still find that Team Foundation Server is significantly more cost effective than current source code control solutions and offers tremendous value through its role as the core of integration across all of the Team System.
• We're introducing additional promotional pricing on the Team System for both retail and volume license customers.  So, going forward into 2005, MSDN Universal customers will have three choices (including promotional pricing):
  • Universal subscribers that want all of the client functionality of Team System will be able to upgrade to Team Suite by paying just the incremental software assurance or renewal price for the duration of their agreement.  In retail, this amounts to around $2300 and for most customers this represents a 75% or more discount on the full price of Team Suite.  Volume customers will, of course, pay less. Renewals for volume license customers continue at the promotional price for as long as you are an active volume license subscriber.
  • Universal subscribers who want Team Edition for Software Architects, Team Edition for Software Developers, or Team Edition for Software Testers will continue to be able to upgrade at no additional cost. Each of these “role Editions” includes the MSDN Premium Subscription which will come with the limited TFS.
  • Universal subscribers who want the 2005 equivalent of MSDN Universal can simply choose Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition with MSDN Premium Subscription. Universal subscribers who choose this option at renewal will get the functional equivalent of MSDN Universal for about 15% less than what they paid today. This version will not have any of the role based features nor will it include the limited TFS.
• Another piece of feedback we heard loud and clear is that it is darn near impossible to find information about the Visual Studio products and MSDN subscriptions to make an informed decision about which product to move into with VS2005. The most critical aspect of this is getting product into your hands, so you can see for yourselves the capabilities of the Team System.  Get a copy of Beta 2 and install it.  Its very nice.  A second aspect, though, is providing more detailed product information on the entire Visual Studio 2005 line and a comparison of each product's contents – which we have now done at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/howtobuy/vs2005/subscriptions/.

Hopefully this addresses a bunch of the pain that people were experiencing because they really wanted the Team System all up including the TFS server. 

Thanks and keep the feedback coming.  We really are listening.

-Rick

 

Brian Harry talks about our NC office and working at MS

Here's a short article in the local Raleigh paper on our NC office complete w/ interview w/ Brian and Craig Harry...

-Rick

latest dogfood server stats

People often ask about our internal usage of the Team Foundation Server.  On various forums I've posted our dogfood (our word for internal usage as in eat your own dogfood to make sure its ready before asking anyone else to...) statistics but realized this morning i've not been posting them here.  I get these updates about once a month from Brian Harry and i'll push them out for you to see.

-Rick

Availability (over the past week)

The server was available 99.92% of the time

Users

Users with assigned work items: 432

Version control users: 247

Work items

Work items: 26,836

CSS nodes: 1,717

Work item versions: 194,117

Attached files: 6,647

Queries: 2,041

Version control

Files/Folders: 73,893/9,678

LocalVersion: 4.14 million

Total compressed file sizes: 1.71GB

Workspaces: 438

Shelvesets: 856

Checkins: 1396

Pending changes: 30,268

Commands (last 7 days)

Gets: 10,923

Downloads: 922,203

Checkins: 282

Uploads: 4653

Shelves: 615

RickLa talking about VSTS on Channel9

Last week Robert Scoble dropped by my office to chat about the Team System for Channel9.  We talked about the history, what the goals were, how we built it, and some of the pricing and licensing issues folks are seeing.  It was fun to talk about this stuff. Drop by Channel9 and check it out...

-Rick