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tfsbuildazure-devops
Elaine Lin
Elaine Lin

Reputation: 541

Visual Studio: Difference between Build Controller and Agent Pool

The old XAML Visual Studio build definitions require a build controller. The new Visual Studio build definitions require an agent pool. I have read the documentation on build machines, build controllers, and build agents, but I could not find documentation on agent pools.

The MSDN documentation says that the build controller distributes "the processor-intensive work of your build process to its pool of build agents." The requirements for using the hosted pool and hosted controller are also identical. As far as I can tell, an agent pool and a build controller are the same thing. Are there any other differences?

UPDATE: I created an agent pool using the new Visual Studio build definitions. It seems to be doing the same thing as a build controller. I guess Microsoft just renamed "build controller" to "agent pool."

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1671

Answers (1)

Daniel Mann
Daniel Mann

Reputation: 59020

In XAML builds, the architecture is that there's a build controller that is connected to a Team Project Collection and is responsible for parceling out work to build agents. Build agents can be on the same machine as the build controller, or spread out across multiple machines. The build controller talks to TFS. The build agents talk to the build controller.

In the new build system, there is no build controller. The agents connect directly to TFS (or VSTS), and are grouped into agent pools. Agent pools exist at the server level and are available to all team project collections (this is not a concern in VSTS at present).

Agent pools can then be used in any team project collection by creating an agent queue that points to the agent pool. Agents cannot be a member of more than one agent pool, and within a single team project collection, an agent pool can be a member of one agent queue.

The main distinction between an agent pool and a build controller is, as previously stated, agent pools are available for all team project collections, whereas build controllers are directly tied to one and only one team project collection.

Upvotes: 2

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