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tfstfsbuild
Jim MacDiarmid
Jim MacDiarmid

Reputation: 149

Is it possible to install the Team Foundation Build Services on another machine or VM?

I'm working on automating our build process using Team Foundation Build 2010. When our TFS Server was installed, whomever installed it didn't install the Build Configuration Services so this node is missing from the TFS Admin Console. I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this but I wanted to check in case I'm missing something. I'm also asking because the TFS Server is a production server and my supervisors do not want to install anything on this server. Can the Build Services be installed on another machine or VM and still have the Build Configuration Node appear in the TFS Admin Console? I know the Build Controller as well as the Build Agent can be installed on another machine or VM. I just wanted to get clarification on the "Build Configuration Services" piece. Thank you

Upvotes: 3

Views: 1527

Answers (1)

Ed Blankenship
Ed Blankenship

Reputation: 5223

Absolutely! This is actually a very typical scenario. I don't normally recommend for people to install the build services on any of the application tier servers. When you install only the build features, the TFS Administration Console will show only the build features.

By installing it on separate machines, you can create a build farm of a build controller with multiple build agents. It scales very well.

Build servers would be considered "production" servers in my opinion as well. They don't have the same disaster recovery or monitoring requirements though. If a build machine dies, just image another one and add it to the pool. This is essentially how the elastic build service for the Team Foundation Service (aka TFS Preview) currently works. They get destroyed after each use.

Upvotes: 8

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