Tips from the Tech Team
Fifteen Tips on a Successful Team Foundation Server UpgradeBy Doug Seven | Senior Product Manager | Visual Studio Team System | dseven@microsoft.com
It’s 2009. Oh how the time flies. It seems like just yesterday we were all excited about Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server, got it installed and up and running. Suddenly it’s 2009 and Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server has been out for just over a year. If your New Year’s resolution is to upgrade from Team Foundation Server 2005 to 2008 then let me help you get started right, and finish successfully. As a Product Manager for Visual Studio Team System I have excellent access to some great resources – the engineering team that built Team Foundation Server. I asked them for some tips and tricks for a successful upgrade from 2005 to 2008.
Here are fifteen tips, straight from the team:
- Read the docs.
- Run the TFS Best Practices Analyzer (requires PowerShell) and resolve any errors before upgrading.
- Make sure you have full backups.
- Backup the RS encryption key.
- If you installed any pre-release bits (beta’s, etc.) make sure they are removed (Control Panel > Add Remove).
- Make sure all TFS service accounts (aka TFSService, TFSReports) and passwords are known before starting.
- Before you upgrade, ensure your SQL Server installation has the most recent Service Pack.
- When we say 'Uninstall TFS from the data tier' don’t sweat – it doesn’t don't remove any data. Really (but do backups anyway).
- Validate that TFS 2005 is working before starting; this includes manually looking at the Team Portal (WSS) and Reports (SSRS) via the browser.
- If using SQL Server mirroring, temporarily break mirror for upgrade (see the TFS Install Guide).
- If upgrading SharePoint from 2.0 to 3.0, read the latest guidance.
- Allocate one (1) hour of upgrade time (read: downtime) for every 8Gigs of database size.
- Make sure you have at least 2x the size of your database in free disk space.
- Don't attempt to use the upgrade time for other backlogged Admin operations. Start with a working system. Upgrade. Test. If service accounts, users, permissions, etc. need changing also, do this after the upgrade has been tested.
- Read the docs (yes, it is so important that I listed it twice).
Now you are armed and ready to perform a successful update from Team Foundation Server 2005 to 2008. You will find that the benefits of the 2008 version make it worth the time spent. Good luck!
[PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION]
|
