Drawbacks to Team Foundation Service and TFS on Azure

Question

I'm an MSDN subscriber beginning a personal project that will involve WPF, Web Services, and SQL Server. I'm planning on using my MSDN benefits to host the Web Services on Azure and the database on SQL Azure.

I was going to run TFS on my own dev machine, but then heard about Microsoft's Team Foundation Service cloud offering. Also, it appears that I could run my own instance of TFS on Azure. At this point I'm thinking that Team Foundation Service is the best option because:

1. I'd prefer to have TFS in the cloud over my main dev machine so that I can access it anywhere and not have to worry about having to back it up.
2. I'd rather not have to worry about setting up and administrating TFS on Azure if I'm not getting anything extra out of it.
3. I'm not exactly sure if setting up and using TFS on Azure will be free (or continue to be free) with my MSDN Subscription.

Has anyone experienced any major drawbacks to using Team Foundation Service, like a major loss of flexibility or functionality?

Answer 1

I've been using TFS Services since it has been in preview for my personal work - and I haven't had any limitations in terms of source control/build services. The service is fairly comparable to the full TFS server; but doesn't include the more advanced features such as test automation.

The pricing page also states that service will continue to remain free for MSDN subscribers: https://tfs.visualstudio.com/en-us/pricing/information/

Answer 2

Before TFSPreview existed, I asked some people in the know at MS about running TFS in Azure and I was told that there are some non-trivial problems with running TFS on a virtual machine on Azure. I believe this is why MS are offering TFS as a service rather than as a template for a virtual machine. As such, if you want to use TFS and you want it to be in the cloud, I'd definitely use the TFS Preview.