Server Planning

Article
11/27/2007

The primary Team System server is Team Foundation Server. It delivers version control, work item tracking, build, team project portal, reporting, and project management capabilities. Team Foundation Server also includes a data warehouse where data from work item tracking, source control, builds, and testing tools is stored. This data is used by Team Foundation for its built-in reporting functionality. Other Visual Studio Team System servers include build computers and Team Edition for Testers test rig servers. Depending on your business needs, you might choose to deploy some or all of these servers.

Team Foundation Servers

Visual Studio Team System includes the following servers:

Team Foundation Server

Team Foundation Server delivers version control, work item tracking, build, a team project portal, reporting, and project management capabilities. A logical Team Foundation Server consists of two components: an application server, made up primarily of Web services, and a database server, made up primarily of a SQL Server 2005 database. In Team Foundation Server deployments, these two components are referred to as the application-tier server and the data-tier server. The application-tier server and data-tier server can be deployed on one server (a single server deployment) or two servers (a dual server deployment).

Build Computer

To take advantage of the Team Foundation Build feature, one or more computers in the Visual Studio Team System environment can be designated as build computers. Team Foundation Build provides the functionality of a public build lab and is part of Visual Studio Team Foundation Server. With Team Foundation Build, enterprise build managers can synchronize the sources, build the application, run build associated unit tests, perform code analysis, release builds on a file server, and publish build reports. Build result data is propagated to the data warehouse for historical reporting. Team Foundation Build works with other Visual Studio Team Foundation Server tools during the build process including source control and work item tracking. For more information about Team Foundation Build features and planning, see Team Foundation Build Planning.

Test Servers and Test Rigs

Team Edition for Testers lets you create, manage, edit, and run tests, and also obtain and store test results. Several test types—including unit, Web, load, and manual tests—as well as the measurement of code coverage, are integrated into Visual Studio. Team Edition for Testers enables Visual Studio Team System users to run tests on remote computers, called a rig. A test rig consists of a test controller and one or more agents. The test controller and agent can be installed on one computer or on two different computers. One test controller can coordinate the execution of several test runs on computers which have the test agent installed.

Because the testing tools are integrated with the other parts of Visual Studio Team System, you can publish results to a database, generate trend and historical reports, compare different kinds of data, see how many and which bugs were found because of testing, and identify which bugs are not linked to a test that could help reproduce them.

Active Directory Domain Controller Integration

Visual Studio Team System integrates with the authorization and basic authentication features of Windows Server 2003 and Windows 2000 Server to validate users. Visual Studio Team System is compatible with Windows 2000 mixed-mode and native-mode domains, and also to Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2003 domains. Smaller organizations might use Windows Authentication and workgroups to manage their users instead of Active Directory, but larger organizations should use Active Directory. Visual Studio Team System uses existing Active Directory domain controllers in a large scale deployment. For more information about Active Directory, see Windows Server 2003 Active Directory (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=47541).

SMTP Server integration

Team Foundation Server has an extensible notification infrastructure. Team Foundation Server can optionally use an existing SMTP server to provide e-mail notification capabilities to end users.

Server Architecture

The following diagram illustrates the basic architecture of Team Foundation servers.

Server architecture diagram

Team Foundation Server Requirements

Team Foundation Server has specific hardware and software requirements. Additionally, hardware requirements might vary depending on how you plan to deploy and use Visual Studio Team System. When planning a Team Foundation Server deployment, it is also important to understand requirements specific to your business needs. For more information about server hardware and software requirements, see Server Requirements for Team System.

Other Server Considerations

Virtual PC

Team Foundation Server servers will operate correctly on a Virtual PC or a virtual server. However, this configuration is not recommended for production environments. It can be used in evaluation or demonstration scenarios.

Terminal Servers

Team Foundation Server servers will operate correctly with Terminal Server sessions. You can use Terminal Services to remotely manage Team Foundation Server. For more information about Terminal Services, see Windows Server 2003 Terminal Services (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=24427).

Dedicated Servers

Team Foundation Server servers should be dedicated to Team Foundation Server functionality. They should not serve any other purpose, such as mail servers, file servers, Web servers, or database servers for other applications.

In This Section

Planning for Single-Server Deployment
Describes how to plan for a single-server deployment.

Planning for Dual-Server Deployment
Describes how to plan for a dual-server deployment.