As the date for the TFS SP1 Beta approaches, there’s one feature that will make TFS much easier to access from outside an organisation and that’s the new extranet support.

An excerpt from Brian Harry’s post on Stuff in the pipe for Team Foundation Server.

“Extranet support” – We implemented an ISAPI filter that will allow the intranet to use NTLM and integrated auth while the extra net uses basic auth.  This enables TFS to be more easily deployed in environments where people on the internet need to be able to access TFS without having VPN.

One of the things you should probably consider if this is something that interests you, is how you have named your TFS server and is this name Internet suitable. If not, Etienne Tremblay has posted a great article on Changing to a friendly Team Foundation Server Name.

Remember, this article is NOT about the extranet support coming in SP1, but rather how you can change your server naming which may be useful if your are considering external connectivity once it becomes available. I need to change a few TFS servers in anticipation of the extranet support so I’ll be following Etienne’s steps in the next few days.