Solidify recently conducted an Azure DevOps Fastrack at Renishaw plc in Wotton-under-Edge in England. The Azure DevOps Fastrack is a program for selected Microsoft customers to get help moving their Azure DevOps/TFS platform or a selected application to the Cloud. The customer gets two weeks on-site help from selected Microsoft partners or from Microsoft to work with their own staff.

Renishaw is one of the world's leading engineering and scientific technology companies, with expertise in precision measurement and healthcare. Renishaw does cool stuff like Metal 3D printers.

I, Magnus Timner, had the pleasure of working with Andy Forrest, Software Services Manager and James Booker, IT Support Manager, both working with the existing TFS/Azure DevOps platform. During the two weeks we upgraded their existing TFS to the latest Azure DevOps version and also set up some good samples of how to move their teams to the cloud and ran af few dry-runs.

The last day of the FastTrack I had a chat with Andy and James about the work we had done. Here’s the conversation as a whole:

What effect have you got from the work the last two weeks?

Andy: It refreshed my memory on the stuff I used to know, also I got a better understanding how to support TFS and the teams. Getting my hand hands dirty was nice. It has given Renishaw a way forward, to plan how to handle the infrastructure and help the teams. It has also helped us setting Renishaw up for the future and helped us decide what toolset to use and by that stick to Azure DevOps.

James: It has taught us what Azure DevOps really is. Seeing it in reality is much better than reading about it. Also, the demos where important for me and the teams.

Was there anything special that really has helped you?

Having Tiago from Microsoft and Magnus from Solidify here to help us in place with your experience was invaluable.

Learning how to setup a pre-production environment has really helped us to cleanup and prepare for future migrations.

Would you recommended others getting help from Solidify?

Yes, it was invaluable with having two solid weeks to focus on getting work done. Google is great but personal experience beats that.

Do you have a good idea how you are going to continue after this weeks?

Yes, we have clear picture how to go forward and how to continue discussions the with the teams.

Some TFS instances will be moved to Azure DevOps server, the remaining will go to DevOps services.