I just completed reading Professional Team Foundation Server 2013 and this book, like previous versions, is packed full of great information that will help you whether you are just getting started with TFS or you are a seasoned professional.
The book covers important topics such as Version Control, Project Management, Build, and Administration. There were some major features added to TFS since the 2012 version and this book covers them thoroughly. It is important to note that the book covers both TFS 2013 and Visual Studio Online so whether you’ll be covered with both options.
I found that the 7 chapters covering version, both with Team Foundation Version Control and Git were very thorough and well-thought. The authors take you through version control basics with centralized and distributed version control, talk about best practices working with heterogeneous teams, migration plans, branching models, and common scenarios. With Git being so new to many people that have been on TFS for a while, I found these chapters super valuable and full of great information and guidance.
Project Planning is another part of TFS that got a lot of changes in 2013 and that was also thoroughly covered, including changes to the backlogs, portfolio management, team rooms, and ways to customize your views.
Chapter 20 on Release Management has a very good introduction to the new Release Management feature added in 2013. You can write a whole book on this topic and the authors did a good job at condensing enough information into one chapter to help the reader understand the capabilities of Release Management and how to get started, including system requirements and server topology.
The final section on Administration (chapters 21 through 29) continues to be a must-read for anyone responsible for administering TFS. The authors cover scalability and disaster recovery scenarios and then move on to best practices around security and server monitoring.
This is a really big book, at over 800 pages and it’s full of great stuff. It is organized in a way that you can jump directly to the section or chapter that will help you answer your questions. This should definitely be the go-to book for anyone looking to sharpen their TFS skills or to have great reference material at their fingertips.