TFS Nightmare
I've mentioned before that we're using Team Foundation Server as our source control repository and integration server. We have encountered many bugs in the tool, and have quite a few complaints (like how it's so very slowingly slow), but it was still a definite improvement over what we had before (VSS 6 for source control and nothing for integration).
A few days ago an issue had risen that required us to reinstall TFS. Currently we're our own TFS admins in the company, so it is our responsibility to do this procedure. And there was hell to pay.
Anyone who has tried to install TFS, knows it's not easy. You start with a whole bunch of unclear error messages, which you have to google up for solutions. And once you get through one of those, you get another one. And so it continues, until it ends after a few days of trials and errors. In essence, there are very specific steps you have to go through, and if you leave something out, you have to start all over again. Joy.
Now, reinstalling is exactly like that, only worse, since now you have to worry about all that data you already have in the server. It took us two days to reinstall everything (SQL Server, WSS, TFS and relevant service packs and hotfixes) - apparently there's a new line of errors we haven't seen yet if you're reinstalling and not installing on a fresh machine. Once that was over, we tried to restore our database backups (again, there are specific steps you must take). That of course, didn't work. We were unable to connect to TFS. So we figured we did something wrong in the installation process, and so we reinstalled again. And again. Still nothing - all we have to work with is 5 different errors in the event viewer which show up after we attempt a connection to TFS. Needless to say, looking these errors online turned up nothing.
Currently my team is pretty much grounded on the account of no source control to work with. Our only choice seems to be to recreate our team project on a fresh and uncorrupted database, and check-in local copies of our solutions (losing all history in the process). This will allow the rest of the team to go back to coding, while we continue to try and restore our backups to a different server, so we'll at least have access to the history if we need it.
You could argue that we lack the required knowledge about TFS, and that we need some system team to do the installs/restores for us. You'd be right - this is a new product, and we're still in the process of learning it. And yet, I feel that it shouldn't be this hard. I mean, can't it just work? I've never had such issues with any Microsoft software, or even with ESRI's software which is never easy to install and configure.
Now we're in the risk of losing our source code history, and I can't help but feel uneasy to work with a product that I know to be so unstable. The basic thing I can expect from a source control server is to be able to restore its data from backup, should it happen to explode. I can't sleep easily at night if I'm not absolutely certain that I can achieve that. With TFS, my nights are not easy at all, and I can't help but wonder if we did the right choice when we decided to work with V1.0 of the product. Waiting for the stable V3.0 might have been a better idea.