Microsoft has announced a series of changes to Team Foundation Server (TFS) and Visual Studio Online pricing and licensing strategy based on customer feedback.
You need not have to pay any per-processor (or any other per deployment environment) charge for Release Management from January 1, 2015 onwards. However, the user license terms for authoring release pipelines will not be modified.
“We believe this will make Release Management more affordable and, even more importantly, much easier to manage,” said Brian Harry, Microsoft Technical Fellow and Product Unit Manager, Team Foundation Server.
Microsoft is currently working on the pricing for release management service on Visual Studio Online which is currently in preview stage. Microsoft is also slated to announce the cloud-based release management licensing early next year.
“I expect it will be simple to understand and manage – no per deployment environment licensing,” mentions Brian in his blog post.
Microsoft will add test execution capabilities in the test hub into all “Basic” levels of VS Online Basic, VS Online Professional and VS Professional with MSDN subscribers. Hence, developers who need to run tests can make use of a Basic license.
If a developer need to manage tests in the test hub then an Advanced license will of a great use. VS Test Professional, VS Premium or VS Ultimate is oriented for those developers who need the full Microsoft Test Manager set of capabilities.
Microsoft will add test execution rights using the test hub into the TFS Client Access License (CAL) in Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2015.
With regard to Cloud Load Testing, Microsoft has announced a tiered model that would give good price breaks as load test usage got higher. The revised pricing structure for VS Online Cloud Load Testing will be available to Azure direct customers around second half of December 2014 and will be effective for Enterprise Agreements starting January 1, 2015.
- 20,000 Virtual User Minutes (VUM) for FREE every month
- $.0004/VUM for 20,001-2M VUM
- $.0002/VUM for 2,000,001-10M VUM
- $.0001/VUM for usage beyond 10M VUM/month
Microsoft also increased the number of free monthly virtual user minutes from 15,000 to 20,000. It will result in a low price at every single usage level and a dramatically lower price the more you use.
The revised pricing of Visual Studio Online build service will be as follows
- 60 minutes/month FREE
- $.05/minute for the next 19 hours
- $.01/minute for usage above 20 hours/month
Microsoft will introduce the ability to apply spending caps for load testing and build that gives developers some piece of mind while working on the cloud.
Brian also posted new changes which will affect Visual Studio Online Professional in his official blog post.
