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LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt USB-C STFS5000800 - hard drive - 5 TB - USB 3.1 Ge

Mfg # STFS5000800 CDW # 4607899

Quick tech specs

  • C STFS5000800
  • 5 TB
  • USB 3.1 Gen 1 / Thunderbolt (USB-C connector)
  • Hard drive
  • external (portable)
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Rugged toughness meets USB-C compatibility and blazing-fast Thunderbolt speeds. Also featuring a tethered cable and resistance to the elements, this Rugged drive means you don't have to compromise between durability, mobility, and speed.

This item was discontinued on March 23, 2021

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LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt USB-C STFS5000800 - hard drive - 5 TB - USB 3.1 Ge is rated 4.20 out of 5 by 16.
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Checks source code and revision control and ensures that we do not have to do source control on our own What is our primary use case? I use TFS for source control. We are investigating the cloud option. What is most valuable? TFS is used to check source code and revision control. It ensures we do not have to do source control on our own. I am a programmer and the product does exactly what I need from it. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using Team Foundation Server for six years. I use the 2010 version, however, our IT department is using the 2019 version. What do I think about the stability of the solution? This is a stable solution. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? I have never run into any limitations. We have three individuals in my department using the solution and another six using it in the IT department. How was the initial setup? The initial setup is straightforward. What other advice do I have? I understand Microsoft is phasing out TFS in favor of Git, so I would steer anyone interested in TFS to look into Git. I would rate the product an eight out of ten. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? On-premises Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-06-28T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Reusable test plans, reliable, and beneficial test automation What is our primary use case? We use TFS for manual testing in our labs and as an automation tool., basically use TFS and we have the shared for that. The TFS was previously used for the build repository, but we have moved away from using it and we use other tools for builds. We are moving towards JIRA for other activities, such as cascade management, and test automation management. What is most valuable? The most valuable features of TFS are the test plans. We can reproduce reusable test plans in test automation. We have a lot of queries and this feature is very useful. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using TFS for approximately seven years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? TFS is highly stable. We have a lot of queries and the test plans can generate for automation purposes and runs very well. I prefer TFS over Jira in this area. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? TFS is scalable with different Microsoft tools for test management but it is not scalable with other third-party tools. We have more than 200 users using this solution. Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? We use JIRA in parallel with TFS and we are facing a lot of difficulties with JIRA because we do not receive the leverage and the same features in JIRA that we do in TFS. Our preference is TFS over JIRA. What about the implementation team? There is some maintenance required from our team. For example, licensing and overall support. What other advice do I have? When the applications are developed in VideoStudio and other technologies. It's preferred to use TFS for all of the management solutions. I rate TFS a nine out of ten. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? Public Cloud Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:partner
Date published: 2022-06-12T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Is easy to use, traceable, and stable What is our primary use case? We use it for code archiving, complete CI/CD functionality, code propagation, code repository, etc. What is most valuable? Team Foundation Server (TFS) is easy to use, and we have a complete trail and traceability. We also like the access control part. What needs improvement? The price could be cheaper. We're going for a cloud solution that will give us similar functionality and integration with our other products that we are customizing, like SFD. At present, those codes aren't many. For how long have I used the solution? I've been using it for more than eight years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It is stable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? It's scalable. We have around 45 users. What about the implementation team? We deployed it using an in-house team. You will need two to three people who are in the DevOps teams, who do all the testing, and programmers, who use it and check the code. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? You will need to obtain server and account licenses. What other advice do I have? TFS is a good product, and I would rate it at eight on a scale from one to ten. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? On-premises Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-06-25T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from a stable and scalable code repository What is our primary use case? While I don't recall the exact version we are using, I do know that we upgraded to the latest one. We use the solution for project planning, code repository and for releases, everything really. Primarily, we have used it as a code repository, something we have been doing for many years. We have not made much use of the other features. What needs improvement? The project management side should be addressed and the project and release planning should be somewhat extended. The solution cannot be used as a project management tool on its own. Although clear, the installation is of medium difficulty. It could be better and easier. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using TFS for more than five years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? The solution is very much stable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? We have encountered no issues with the solution's scalability. How are customer service and support? I am not aware of ever having contacted technical support. Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? TFS is the first solution of which we made use. How was the initial setup? While clear, the installation is of medium difficulty. It could be better and easier. I do not know how long it took. What about the implementation team? Not too many people are needed for the deployment, perhaps four or five. They consist primarily of engineers and there is one manager. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? I am not in a position to comment on the licensing terms, as we are talking about an enterprise arrangement. I am not part of that. Which other solutions did I evaluate? Subsequent to TFS, we evaluated and tried making use of Jira and Azure DevOps. What other advice do I have? There are around 250 people making use of the solution in our organization. At this point, I would not recommend the solution to others. I rate the solution as at least an eight out of ten. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? On-premises Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2021-11-25T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Scalable, reliable, and simple initial setup What is our primary use case? The primary use case for TFS is for sharing data. What is most valuable? The most valuable feature of TFS is integration. What needs improvement? The solution should have better dashboards. For how long have I used the solution? I have been at TFS for approximately 10 years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? TFS is a stable solution, but it could be more stable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? The scalability of TFS is good. We have approximately 200 users using this solution in my organization. How are customer service and support? I have not needed to contact the support, my team is very good. How was the initial setup? The initial installation is straightforward. What about the implementation team? We use one to two people for the implementation and support of the solution. What other advice do I have? I rate TFS a nine out of ten. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? On-premises Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-05-10T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Lifecycle management tool that allows you to track the health of your project for the entire lifecycle of software development What is our primary use case? We use this solution mostly for our clients. It's a lifecycle management tool. We use it for the entire lifecycle of software development. Then we deliver it, and use it for production support. Basically, you can always use it for your requirements, as well as to track the health of your project. What is most valuable? I have found almost all of the features valuable because it integrates well with your Microsoft products. If a client is using the entire Microsoft platform, then TFS would be definitely preferable. It integrates with the digital studio development environment as well. So, almost all the features for TFS are useful. The good thing is, unlike other products, you get a complete suite of features. Many of the other vendors don't have an entire suite of features available. If you take Jira for example, the requirements might be captured in a different tool. Or maybe there are other features in the lifecycle development environment and different tools might be used, but TFS offers a consolidated package. You don't have to go to other tools to capture your requirements, or maybe even if you're doing build and release planning. What needs improvement? Nowadays, the shift is from Waterfall to Agile, so many vendors have come up with their own products. For example, Jira has many built-in features which support the PI planning. Overall, I think it would be useful to have something similar where Microsoft comes up with supporting concepts of scaling Agile in TFS so that clients don't have to look for a separate tool. That would be helpful. With the latest version, I'm not too aware of whether Microsoft has implemented the PI planning features, the collaboration features, in TFS or not. But I think that would be one of the features that might be helpful to the development teams and for the overall planning. There have also been some security glitches with this solution. For how long have I used the solution? I've used this solution for more than 10 years. I've been working on Microsoft technologies only, and my team members have also been working on TFS for a long time. The last time I used TFS was in 2020. After that, I moved out of delivery into consulting. I was using the last version before they moved to the cloud version, Azure DevOps. Earlier, we were using it majorly on-premises. Later on when Microsoft introduced Azure DevOps, then we moved onto the cloud. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It is stable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? It's absolutely scalable. If you are planning for a high availability environment, then you can definitely have a backup environment as well. Then if something goes wrong with your primary server, there is always a backup available, which you can always use. How are customer service and support? The support and documentation available on their website are very good. I would rate them between 4 and 5 on a scale of 1 to 5. How was the initial setup? I would give the initial setup a four out of five. It's not very complex. Microsoft provides all the documentation and guidance to do the setup, and even has videos available. The guidance is very good. The length of deployment is on a case-by-case basis. Some of the clients may have a complex environment, some may not. So it depends on what kind of supporting tools are available on the client's premises. TFS is not that complex to set up, unless the environment design is very complex. Most of the clients have their own support teams for incident management. So, it depends on each of the individual clients. They have the budget, and they will have an entire team to support your TFS and management. What was our ROI? It's worth the money. I've been using Microsoft products right from the start of my career, and I'm a big fan of Microsoft products. Many people don't like them because they work on different platforms. But the good thing about Microsoft products is that they're interlinked. For example, even if I'm a developer, the underlying development language is always going to be the same, irrespective of whether I use Dynamics 365 or ASP. The underlying programming language is always common. So, the rates are comparatively less than shifting from one Microsoft product to another, or implementing the suite of Microsoft products. The learning curve is always comparatively less. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? Microsoft products are always expensive. Obviously, they are quality products, but it would be helpful if there was a reduction in price. But compared to other vendors, I think the cost is high. I've been doing the budgeting for clients, and I find that the costing part — when we are going for new environments or we are ordering new servers — definitely plays a big part. I would rate it between a 2 and 3 out of 5. What other advice do I have? I would rate this solution 8 out of 10. I'd give it that rating because there are security glitches, but otherwise, from a usability standpoint and from the operational perspective, I think the products are really good. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? Private Cloud If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use? Microsoft Azure Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:
Date published: 2022-04-15T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Very good filters that help us create a monitoring dashboard, as well as test and script planning What is our primary use case? We use this solution for test management and defect tracking. What is most valuable? Most of my work is in the defect area of the solution. I like the attachments which can be directly inserted and highlighted. Users get alerted so they know when there's work required which makes the solution quite efficient. TFS also has filters that help us create a dashboard for monitoring, as well as test and script planning. What needs improvement? I haven't been able to get access to the test case management and execution because it requires an extra license fee. It would be helpful if that was made available to all the users who have already bought TFS. For how long have I used the solution? I've been using this solution for about three years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? The solution is stable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? The solution is scalable. Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? The features in TFS are similar to those found in Jira. How was the initial setup? The solution came with our Microsoft package so no deployment was required, it was just a matter of clicking on the web link. We currently have more than 500 users and that will increase in the future. What other advice do I have? I rate the solution nine out of 10. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? Public Cloud If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use? Microsoft Azure Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-05-15T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Good traceability for managing workflows, but not flexible enough for agile environments What is our primary use case? We use it for software development, but we are moving to Jira. How has it helped my organization? We work with life science companies, and they need traceability. Because we have the capability of being able to provide the traceability that they require, it helps us with laying out what they need for their validation efforts. What is most valuable? The traceability is valuable. While managing the workflows, it was always nice to have that traceability from requirements and all the way through design. It integrates with Microsoft Test Manager (MTM), and you can have everything that is related to a requirement attached to it. What needs improvement? It has been really dated. When you start to work more in an agile environment, it is not really that flexible. They tried to replicate the look and feel of Jira, but it is not quite there. It was nice to use in the past, but it is not as flexible now with the changing development environments and methodologies. It should have some of the things that Jira has, such as boards. We're focused on the scrum boards where you can actually drag and drop work from one queue to another. There should be more flexibility where you can just drag and drop as a user and have more visibility about what's active, what's not, and what's assigned to you through dashboards. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using this solution for almost 14 years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It was quite stable. We did not have a lot of issues over all those years. So, it definitely was a reliable solution for a long period of time. It just was not flexible when we started moving to a more agile model. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? It was able to scale to meet our needs. It also allowed us to do our customization. I'm not sure if that ended up being a good thing, but it did allow us to do what we wanted it to do. We have about 150 users, and they're developers, FQA, software quality engineers, business analysts, user experience team members, and architects. For its deployment and maintenance, in general, there are four or five people. They are from the DevOps team. We don't plan to expand its usage. We're transitioning to Jira. How are customer service and support? Their support was good. We had the support we needed for both TFS and Microsoft Test Manager. Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? We were not using any different solution. This company has been working with TFS for as long as I can remember. We're now transitioning to Jira. How was the initial setup? It was fairly complex, but some of it was due to us. We did more configuration and customization, and because we customized the system, it made it more complicated. In terms of duration, some of our previous upgrades took several days. Most of that was the actual deployment, but the preparation took several weeks. What about the implementation team? We did use an integrator once or twice. Our experience with them was good. It was easier because we didn't have to worry about a lot of things. They took the burden of the effort, and we just had to give them information. What was our ROI? We haven't quantified that. In general, there has been a great time saving because with what we've done around validation artifacts, we've been able to build it right into the system. So, we can automatically generate it at the end of a release. Earlier, it would've taken us six weeks to put together a validation package. With what we've set up in TFS, it would take us a week at the max. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? I was working with the engineering team, and that was not under my umbrella. From what I can remember, its license was yearly. They had the licenses on a per-user basis, and they included MTM. Which other solutions did I evaluate? I'm not really sure what they did. It was already in place when I joined the company. What other advice do I have? I would advise Microsoft to update the tool. If a lot of users are starting to move to Jira because of the agile environment, Microsoft might want to adapt a little faster and provide similar or better functionality. It has been reliable for a very long time, and I've been really happy with it, but you've got to be able to change with the methodologies and the environments. I would rate it a six out of 10 because it hasn't changed enough. I would've given it a much higher rating years ago, but because of the lack of evolution and not being able to adapt to the current business needs, its rating is not higher at this point. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? On-premises Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2021-11-29T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from A stable, scalable and easily installable enterprise wide solution What is our primary use case? As the solution is cloud-based, we always use the latest version. We use it comprehensively for client career management. We can use it to read test cases and link cases. Everything is done in TFS. What is most valuable? I feel that the test plan and test tools are more manageable in TFS. What needs improvement? In the TFS tool, we, essentially, made the test cases and test tools. The execution of test cases could stand improvement. They have provided many ways to manage the execution, but they can streamline it to one or two ways. People do not wish to try all the alternative methods. For how long have I used the solution? We have been using TFS for three years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? When it comes to stability, the entire process is good. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? I have no issues with the scalability. It is fine. How are customer service and technical support? I have do not recall occasion to contact TFS technical support. Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? I cannot state for certain if we were previously using a different solution, as I would have to know to which year you refer. Again, we have been using TFS for three years. How was the initial setup? Installation is totally fine. I have no issues with it. I do not recall how long it took. What about the implementation team? Installation can be done with the help of the technical team. We are talking about the same team, consisting of around four people and a single manager. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? We pay for the license yearly. What other advice do I have? They're slowly migrating the solution to DevOps at the moment. I would recommend the solution to others. I suggest that those looking for enterprise wide solutions can go with TFS whereas, if they are short on team members, they can try the alternative. Smaller teams can try Jira, as well. I rate TFS as a seven to eight out of ten. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2021-09-10T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from One-stop solution that is useful, and makes things easier to manage, but the burndown charts are problematic What is our primary use case? We use TFS for project management. What is most valuable? Basically, the capacity to construct various products is something I find handy. For example, I could write a user story and then add some tasks to it, as well as subtasks and test cases. Everything can be linked together, making it easy for us to track down and document hours for each and every task, whether it's a task, above, or anything else. Everything is interconnected. As a result, tracking and viewing the bulletin board dashboard and burndown charts, among other things, is much easier. It's a one-stop solution that is useful and makes it easier to handle. What needs improvement? The overall ability in the Agile process has some room to improve, even though it is interconnected. When I worked on Jira, it had the capability of better linkage. When it comes to project management, we are having trouble with burndown charts, which we can't seem to display. As a result, we have created new tasks and realigning our process. Rather than creating larger tasks, we are creating subtasks such as development tasks, QA tasks, and deployment tasks. An area of improvement is when there is a login for a specific user story present, it should display automatically. This is an area that where we are having difficulty and struggling in. The scalability can be improved. Linkage and task management are two areas that we are having difficulties with. It could be more like Jira, which has a number of different plugins. In addition, I feel that the status should include additional options. For example, they offer fewer options for a specific task user story or bugs. I'm looking for specific options that aren't currently available, such as active status, new status, or what's currently in progress. I would like to see an in-progress capability where you can mark it active, but you can also write that it is in progress. When I look at the dashboard, there is nothing there to show me what has been done or why it is active or not. For how long have I used the solution? My company has been using TFS since it started. It may be more than 10 years. I joined the company a year ago. We have been using it through the cloud during COVID and working from home. We can connect to it from any network. What do I think about the stability of the solution? There have been some lags in the past, and we have also encountered some latency when setting it up on the laptop. You may have some problems at first, but as soon as you connect to the internet and update your product, everything becomes stable. Within our organization, for example, we use Microsoft Teams for communication, chats, and for calls. We had some issues with it being unreliable and not fully airing the sound over the laptop speakers and mic. I discovered that as soon as we updated the product, the stability was restored. There was a problem with Teams, which they fixed and updated. Initial difficulties are to be expected, but things are constantly improving. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? It can be scaled to some extent. The main issue is that, unlike Jira or any other tool, the burndown chart is not displayed. How are customer service and support? I have never used technical support because I've never been in a situation where it has gone down and I needed to contact them, but I believe that because Microsoft is a reputable organization with adequate technical support right now. Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? I have also worked with Jira. I come from a QA background, and we used to do automation. Jira was far easier to integrate with our QA automation frameworks because it has a large number of exposed APIs and public APIs that we could use, which is a positive development. Also, the burndown charts, as well as the ability to manage different Agile model frameworks, where we could use scrum in one project but also had to use Kanban. As a result, the transition from one framework to another was simple. These are the things I found useful but haven't seen in the case of TFS yet. How was the initial setup? Initially, TFS was a bit complicated. Now that it's Azure DevOps the initial setup is much easier. It's a one-stop shop for building code repository, and a version control system within TFS or Azure DevOps, as TFS has been renamed. What other advice do I have? I am a project manager. I would rate TFS a seven out of ten Which deployment model are you using for this solution? Public Cloud Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:partner
Date published: 2021-10-18T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Good user interface, with longevity in the market, optimal performance compared to other choices What is most valuable? The interface is good with TFS. What needs improvement? I am looking for some pull request features, like Git. I do not see a pull request option for branching and merging. I would also like a true command prompt like Git. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using TFS for the past fourteen or fifteen years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? TFS is definitely stable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? TFS is scalable because it is managed by Microsoft internally. How are customer service and support? Technical support is good. We have optional support with Microsoft. Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? We previously used VSTS however TFS is a far better product. How was the initial setup? The initial setup was very easy and straightforward. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? The overall price of TFS is good. Which other solutions did I evaluate? I think most people are working with Git. We feel comfortable with TFS because we are already used to it. TFS is a good product and you can continue working with it. What other advice do I have? I am overall happy with TFS and would rate it a nine on a scale of one to ten. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-09-22T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Allows me to manage backlog items and collaborate with developers What is our primary use case? I use this solution in my organization as a product owner who manages backlogs in DevOps. I manage the backlogs items and use it to collaborate with my developers. There are less than 100 people using this solution in my company. The solution is deployed on-cloud. What is most valuable? It's user friendly. We haven't had any issues so far. It's flexible. If we need something, we can always contact the owner in our headquarters to make a configuration. What needs improvement? I only use 1% of the functionality, so I am not familiar enough to know what needs to be improved. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using this solution for a couple of years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It's stable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? It's scalable. What other advice do I have? I would rate this solution five out of ten. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? Public Cloud Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-07-28T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Keeps code secure while working in a team What is our primary use case? We use TFS for volume control, source checking, and source control. What is most valuable? The most valuable feature of TFS is that it keeps the code secure while working collaboratively in a team of four or five individuals. We have different teams working on different solutions using different technology sets. At the backend, it has good source control. We work with Microsoft technology stack, open source stack, as well as IBM stack. We have different teams working on the backend with TFS as our source control. What needs improvement? I would like to see TFS improve its web interface as there are some limitations with IDs and the integration behind it and with open-source tools like VS Code. As a version control, we have found some inconsistencies related to updates from previous versions. If you set up the Git repository, and you want to change it back to TFS, it is a bit confusing now in the latest update. We were hung up when two repositories were intermingled together. We were confused about why the Git project was not converting to TFS. I believe Microsoft is supporting the Git repositories. The TFS TFVC is not user-friendly because, for Git repositories that you have already created to use the TFS repositories, you need to go back into the ID to Video Studio when the TFS repository comes up by default. Using the web interface, by default you get the Git repository. For a team that is not familiar with this and is not using the ID as a video studio or VS, code management gets difficult. Even with VS Code as an open source ID, TFS at the backend as a repository is difficult and integration is complex. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using TFS on a daily basis for five years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? So far, I have found TFS to be stable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? The solution is scalable, however, we do not need to scale because we do not have many people on each team. The administration part requires three or four people, and for development teams, we have about 15 team members who actively use VS Code. How was the initial setup? The initial setup of TFS is really just a click. It is basic and not complex. What about the implementation team? We deployed the solution in-house. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? Our organization has an enterprise license with TFS. Which other solutions did I evaluate? We explored other sources before. We also used some open-source tools. What other advice do I have? We are considering trying another solution as we don't find TFS assistance or community help when compared to Git. TFS is a good solution once you get comfortable using it. If you are coming from TFS 2013 or TFS 2015, you are going to find the 2019 version different. I understand that TFS is moving towards the cloud, so all the features are designed with this in mind. In the 2019 version, you will see more DevOps-related tools and automated app tools. The solution is easy and complex at the same time. If you are familiar with pipelines, you will find it interesting. You need a technical team to provide help and assistance to get the whole value from 2000 DevOps TFVC. If you are not actually fully exploring the feature set or using them, it is just another source control like any other open-source control. If you gain experience with the iron value sets with TFVC DevOps, the whole project management will be smooth and stable. Releases will come out but all the hiccups between the teams, such as the development teams, QA teams, and deployment teams will smooth out. I would rate this solution an eight out of ten overall. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? On-premises Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-08-17T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from User-friendly test management and bug reporting What is our primary use case? I use TFS to assign and manage projects. What is most valuable? TFS's best features include user-friendly test management, bug reporting, and ID assignment. What needs improvement? TFS's CI/CD, project pipelines, and management development could be improved. TFS is also an older product, so it's not making the advances that other products in the market are. For how long have I used the solution? I've been using TFS for seven years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? TFS is very stable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? TFS is a very scalable product. What other advice do I have? I would rate TFS eight out of ten. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-09-16T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Great repository and merge tool with a straightforward setup What is our primary use case? It is easy to push our changes from quality to pre-prod and prod. We also use TFS for maintaining our data. What is most valuable? It is a repository, so all the changes are saved. Also, even if there is some conflict, we have the merge tool and can use it to check the changes made by the developers. We can finalize which one to push to the server. What needs improvement? It would be better if we could bring it out on the cloud. For how long have I used the solution? We have been using this solution for one year, and it is deployed on-premises. What do I think about the stability of the solution? We build a table in TFS and then deploy it using Octopus. It is a slower process, and you can go directly to SSMS and create a table there. However, there is no history if there are any mishaps, so we lose all the changes. So it is better to make those changes in TFS to have a backup. So even though TFS is slower, it is better. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? The solution is scalable, and we haven't faced any issues with TFS except for some conflicts we can resolve using the merge tool. We have about 50 to 60 people using TFS. We have about eight people working on our support team. How are customer service and support? I rate the technical support a nine out of ten. How was the initial setup? The initial setup was straightforward. Deployment time depends on the weight of the package table or solution. It can range from 20 seconds to ten minutes. We completed the deployment in-house. What other advice do I have? I rate this solution a nine out of ten. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-09-17T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from It is helpful for scheduled releases and enforcing rules, but it should be better at merging changes for multiple developers and retaining the historical information What is our primary use case? We use TFS for all of our source code. We develop a software suite with about eight different applications that work together, and then we also do firmware development. We use it for our firmware development source code repository. It is deployed on a private server. We've gone all the way from version 2012 up to 2017, and we will be doing the 2019 upgrade very soon. How has it helped my organization? An example would be that now we have scheduled releases. We have scheduled builds that happen every Thursday that get rolled out to our development testers. In the past, before TFS, the developers themselves used to initiate that, and it was done randomly. So, being on a schedule is much better. It basically enforces our rules. Because everything is more controlled, source code cannot be checked in unless it builds correctly. It basically forces the developers to adapt to the agile methodology that we use, which is small chunks of work at a time. What is most valuable? The most valuable features are related to source code management. Using TFS for source code management and being able to branch and have multiple developers work on the same projects is valuable. We can also branch and merge code back together. Another valuable feature is our continuous integration because we do continuous builds. So, continuous building with the build server is also very important. What needs improvement? They have room for improvement in merging the source code changes for multiple developers across files. It is very good at highlighting the changes that the source code automatically does not know how to handle, but it's not very good at reporting the ones that it did automatically. There are times when we have source code that gets merged, and we lose the changes that we expected to happen. It can get a little confusing at times. They can just do a little bit better on the merging of changes for multiple developers. When you restructure your source code, the historical information doesn't directly come across. It doesn't link when you move those source folders around. I would like to see that ability. The whole source code control system should show you the history of all the changes you made to a bunch of files. If we take a folder with a bunch of files and move it from one place to another, the history is gone. It just doesn't bring over the history of everything that was moved. That has prevented us from restructuring some of our source code to suit the larger number of developers that we have. I haven't called Microsoft to see if there is help that they can give me on this because on the web and on their sites, I can clearly see that that is just the way it is, and we're not doing something wrong. So, that is something for which I would really like to have the ability. I can't recall the versions, but when I upgraded from one version to another, it didn't retain history as well because they made some fundamental changes. It might have been from 2012 to 2015. I upgraded and moved it to a new server, and it lost the historical information. We needed the old stuff running so that we could access the historical data. So, the upgrade path wasn't that easy. I don't know if that's the case anymore. When we go to 2019, we'll be finding that out. For how long have I used the solution? We've been using TFS for 10 years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It has been extremely stable. We don't have any issues with it. It works. Performance is good. All the features that we turned on are working exactly as we expected. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? So far, so good. We've had one external developer consultant that had to come in and access it as well, and that went well. I don't have any gauge about how it would be for a team of 50 developers. The hardware we're running on it right now probably wouldn't be enough, but I don't feel that it wouldn't be able to scale to a larger number of developers. From a security model perspective and from a functionality perspective, it seems to have all the features to be scalable. I just don't know about the performance. That's all. Currently, there are five of us who work with this solution. We have one project manager and four developers. We have one firmware developer who does not work in the Visual Studio environment. This firmware developer works in a microchip MPLAB X environment. All other developers work in the Visual Studio development world. So, it's more integrated, but both roles work. The same people also take care of its maintenance. From a source code management perspective, it is being used very extensively. From a build server perspective, it is used extensively. We don't do release management with it, and we don't have integrated automated testing turned on in it as well. Those are two fairly large areas of functionality that we don't use currently. We may in the future, but we're not using them right now. We're using about 60% of the functionality. How are customer service and support? From a technical support perspective, we've used the Microsoft website to get answers to our questions. It has been very good that way. I would rate it a five out of five in that aspect. We haven't had to call a person or open up a case. We've been able to do our own self-support through the knowledge base that they supply. There are a lot of users of this product. So, a lot of the typical problems that people experience are out there, and it's easy to find them. How would you rate customer service and support? Positive Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? In different roles that I've had with different companies, I've used CVS, which is a different source code system. It's on the Linux system. It's not on Microsoft Windows. I've also used TortoiseSVN. I find TFS much easier because it's fully integrated into our solution. In the previous world, I wasn't the decision-maker about which one to use. I came into projects that already had those in place, and they were not developing on the Microsoft platform. I understand why they didn't use the Microsoft platform in that case. In our world, we're developing software that runs mostly on the Microsoft platform, so it made sense to do that. Originally, when I used other packages, I was working as a consultant. I was working at different places, and I was using whatever the decision-makers used at those places as their source code control systems. When we started this company and I was the decision-maker, I used the Microsoft TFS platform. How was the initial setup? It's relatively straightforward for a developer. On the initial setup, I'd probably rate it a four out of five. It took us about three days to get everything set up correctly, but we complicated our environment as time went on. We started off with one developer, then up to two, then to three, and then to four. So, as we increased our number of developers on the team, we changed the complexity of how it was deployed. It wasn't all done in one shot. It was done over a period of time. If we had to set it up from scratch today, it would probably take us about three or four days to map it out and do it correctly. The more developers you have, the more complicated the setup has to be because you need to set up permissions and you need to set up roles and responsibilities. If it was just one team doing the same thing, it would be no different for one developer or five developers, but because we have different areas of expertise that we work in, we were trying to protect certain code bases from one developer from another. So, it just becomes more complicated. It's really just a security permissions thing that makes it complicated. What about the implementation team? We did it all ourselves. We haven't outsourced. We have a company that we deal with that maintains our servers for us, but they don't have any TFS experience. We coordinated these changes through them, but we dictated the changes. So, they didn't provide us with any expertise. What was our ROI? We develop software for the oil and gas world. Our software runs right on drilling rigs and downhole and also on tools that we put downhole. When there are problems, we need to fix things quickly. It is critical. We're tens of thousands of dollars an hour at a rig, so we do need to make a quick fix. We now have release management and the ability to do small, hotfixes, and things like that to help customers. Definitely, time is money. It allows us to go back in time very easily to a known configuration in our worlds. We can go back with our source and pull out the code and compare and diagnose any problems that are occurring. It helps to rule out and diagnose problems quickly and way more efficiently in real-time. We remove the uncertainties of what software is and where and what has changed. It really helps us there. It helps us respond to our customers' needs in a much faster fashion and saves our customers' money in a way. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? I believe we pay on a yearly basis. I don't know the current costs of them. We outsource all that to a third party. Each of the developers gets a Microsoft Visual Studio Azure DevOps license, which gives them access to the TFS server as well. We probably pay on average about 1,800 Canadian Dollars a ye... Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-06-02T00:00:00-04:00

This page was printed on 4/19/2024 10:51:08 PM.