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We've been using Subversion to maintain our .Net applications forever. Management has decided to force TFS on us. However, there might be some wiggle room to use GIT as our backend repository. With the up coming VS2012 SP2 it seems that might be an option.

My question is (I can't seem to glean this from the docs) does using TFS REQUIRE a TFS server installation if you are using GIT as your backend? If the answer to that is no, then (from a VS client perspective) is the interaction roughly the same as if you had a TFS backend?

LiteWait
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I don't really understand what you're asking... you cannot use a TFS client without a TFS server to communicate with.

VisualStudio can talk to any git repository. It need not be hosted in TFS, it need not even be hosted, it could just be a local repository on your machine. But if that git repository is not hosted by TFS, then you cannot work with other TFS functionality like work item tracking.

Team Foundation Server, however, is a lot more than just version control. If you want to take advantage of TFS functionality for things like agile project management and work item tracking, then you'll need a TFS client. If you want to link a git commit to a work item, then you'll need to have that git commit in a git repository in TFS.

It sounds like you're asking if you can use TFS but not use the version control that's inbuilt to TFS. Technically, the answer is yes, but obviously you would lose any functionality in TFS that depends on version control. You would lose the ability to link work items to git commits (and thus, lose the ability to quickly identify the lines of code that fix a bug.) You would lose the ability to perform continuous integration builds (and thus, you would lose the ability to identify which build contained a new feature or bug fix.)

If that's what you're asking, then this probably isn't a technical question for us but a policy question for your management.

Edward Thomson
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VS2012 with Git vsix/toolkit installed will allow you to work with any Git server including hosted TFS service, which now supports Git repos. Git support will be a part of the next major on-prem TFS release too.

So if you want to use Git as your repository today with a VS client with TFS then the only option is the hosted TFS service or host your own local Git repo.

More links

  1. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/bharry/archive/2013/01/30/git-init-vs.aspx
  2. http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/abafc7d6-dcaa-40f4-8a5e-d6724bdb980c
  3. Using Git with Visual Studio
Community
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allen
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  • Allen, thanks for the help. I think the point I am getting at is...let's assume I am going to host my own private GIT repository in the AWS cloud (migrated from SVN but that is another matter)...will the TFS client (when SP2 is out) _roughly_ look and feel somewhat like TFS hosted source in Team Explorer in VS2012? And even more important is there ANY requirement to run TFS server if we go with this model? – LiteWait Feb 22 '13 at 14:35
  • If you are hosting your own git repo there is no TFS involved. For the experience part you should install the bits and see if it meets your needs - it is v0.7 after all :) See for basic experience details http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudioalm/archive/2013/01/30/getting-started-with-git-in-visual-studio-and-team-foundation-service.aspx – allen Feb 22 '13 at 16:10
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Shot answer yes, you need the TFS server installed to use the new Git features in TFS 2012 SP2.

TFS is much more than version control, it's also an "Application Lifecycle Management" platform. This means that you can use it for Project Management (Waterfall and Agile), Test Automation, Defect Tracking and a whole lot more. The traditional TFS version Control is a centralised system very similar to SVN. So in essence TFS is the server, the client is just a way of calling the various web services that make up TFS.

With TFS 2012 SP2, MS have improved the integration with Git, and in effect you can host a Git Repository "inside" the TFS server. In that scenario you still need the TFS server but your "Master" Git is hosted inside TFS. This feature is already available on the "cloud" Team Foundation Service. This blog shows you how to set up the service using Git. It's free so you could create a repository and have a play to see if it meets your needs. Once TF*Server* 2012 SP2 becomes available, I would imagine it will work in the same way as the current TF*Service* does

James Reed
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