Microsoft's Visual Studio Team System Sets the Stage for Effective Application Life-Cycle Management

Microsoft's Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) unites intuitive functionality across core application life-cycle management areas to help address business drivers and development challenges. From initial modeling and design through development, change management, testing and deployment, VSTS enables base functionality and connectivity since it was built from the ground up to work as an integrated system.

Team Foundation Server in Visual Studio Team System provides a cohesive platform for software development and collaboration because it incorporates process management, work item tracking, source code control, build automation, testing and team controls with centralized reporting. Views into the development work are driven by the roles of those within the development process (architect, developer, and tester). All work items are located in a single database to enable closer coordination.

Quantitative data from VSTS incorporates information from quality control, code churn and cycle times to provide metrics to evaluate IT success qualitatively. In this way, organizations are able to determine which resources are able to provide more effective support for development projects.

Project reporting is integrated into VSTS and viewable through Windows SharePoint Services (WSS), Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Project creates visibility into the life cycle and development process. Using these capabilities, teams are able to facilitate appropriate choices about resource choice, scope and policy decisions.

It will be helpful to lay out the overall framework for VSTS with Team Foundation Server and then to drill into core capabilities associated with specific roles to provide an understanding of Microsoft's application lifecycle management approach.