Testing of two TFS servers from the same workspace - tfs

We have TFS 2013 SP 4 (our existing version) and TFS 2017 (which is under testing for we are upgrading the TFS version).
My question is : Is it possible to work and test on both the TFS at the same time with the same workspace?
Business users are able to configure the new TFS 2017 and work there. However, when they are switching back to TFS 2013 (since we have not gone live with TFS 2017), it throws an 'Identity does not exist error'.
Has anyone tried it?
Is it even possible to test this way? Or shall we have one TFS version at a time for one workspace even for testing?
Thank you.
Anant

When upgraded TFS 2013 to TFS 2017(using TFS 2013 backup) on a new Server, the two servers have the same TFS GUID, which will confuse your Visual Studio clients.
You should avoid having two TFS up & running with the same set of GUIDs. And this is usually avoided by shutting down the old TFS server after the upgrade has finished and has been tested & verified.

Related

TFS Migration from TFS 2010 to TFS 2013 When Both Have Collections in Use

We need to migrate projects in TFS from one server to another. On source server we have TFS 2010 with several VS.NET projects in the DefaultCollection. On the destination server, we have TFS 2013 with an empty DefaultCollection but 2 other collections in use by other developers. Each instance of TFS has its own SQL Server.
The problem we face is how to take the DefaultCollection from the TFS 2010 server and place it on the TFS 2013 Server?
I'm aware of several articles about migration but have not found one that exactly fits our situation. I appreciate any ideas anyone may have.
This is a very straightforward scenario.
Something along these lines should work:
Detach DefaultCollection from TFS 2010 using the admin console.
Take a backup of your TFS 2010 DefaultCollection database
Migrate the database to your TFS 2013 database server
Attach the TFS 2010 DefaultCollection database in TFS 2013 via the admin console. As part of the attaching process, you should be able to rename it.
The team project collection database will be upgraded to TFS 2013 and made available to users. At that point, you can go back and clean up unneeded project collections and rename things if you'd like.
Always take backups before you attempt any sort of migration or upgrade. I always recommend performing the upgrade against a test environment first.

TFS Upgrade From 2012 to 2015 Retain history

We currently have a TFS 2012 Server which is being replaced by a 2015 server, the aim is to gradually migrate our code from one to the other.
When we do this we would like to maintain the checkin history, labels etc, Looking at similar questions the answer seemed to be to use the integration toolkit, however it looks like it (and its successor the integration platform) do not support TFS 2015.
We are using TFVC rather than git, if that makes a difference.
I don't have much knowledge about the integration toolkit, but I would actually suggest to do the upgrade one Team Project Collection at a time, but moving them separately to a new server with TFS 2015 installed. This way you will keep all history, label etc.
We have done this way back when upgrading from TFS 2010 to TFS 2013. Only obstacle that we had was a collection around 500 GB in size so it took around 16 hours for the upgrade to finish.
The following answer specifies the steps needed to move a collection to another server:
Copy TFS 2012 collection to another server with TFS 2015 Installed
We have used this Migration tool for our Client.
It’s possible to migrate TFS 2012 data to TFS 2015 with all information intact without any system downtime. The premium version of OpsHub Visual Studio Migration Utility (OVSMU) supports migration of projects with TFVC repository from one instance to another. It supports the 2010, 2012, 2013, and 2015 versions of TFS and all versions of Visual Studio Online, including the 2017 version. Along with basic data, you can migrate all workitems with history, comments, attachments, relationships, and source control with changesets, history, labels, comments, etc. You can checkout the details here: https://www.opshub.com/products/opshub-visual-studio-migration-utility/

Upgrading to TFS 2015 - copying a project

HELP!!
I'm learning on the fly here with no training whatsoever! I'm a system administrator who is responsible for supporting the developers. They use Visual Studio, TFS, Plastic SCM and TeamCity amongst other tools.
My task was to get TFS 2015 and SQL Server 2014 installed on a new VM. This I have done but my biggest task now is setting up TFS which seems complicated.
For your information, The developers use TFS 2012 as a Kanban board.
Can anyone point me in the right direction to documentation that simply explains how to copy a project from one collection to another? I'm reluctant to move the project to the new version of TFS without testing the current project.
Thanks in advance.
You cannot copy a single project, there is the TFS integration platform, but it sucks and doesn't officially support TFS 2015
I would say your best bet is to follow the following steps.
In TFS 2012, detach the collection using the TFS Admin Console.
Backup the collection database in SQL server
Copy the backup to the new SQL server
Restore the Database
In the TFS Admin Console in TFS 2015, attach the collection
Wait for TFS to update the Database Schema.
You should now have the full team project collection available in the new server.

Team Explorer - Builds shows "(X) Not Found"

First day trying new VS Community 2015 RC Version 14.0.22823.1 D14REL.
Our TFS server is still TFS 2010; I'm wondering if that's the source of the problem.
Other Team Explorer sections are working fine -- Work Items, Source Control Explorer, Pending Changes. I even did a merge and checkin successfully.
But the Builds section shows this:
I'm not even sure where to look for an error log.
VS.NET 2012, still installed on the machine, shows the Builds section correctly.
As support for TFS 2010 ends before VS 2015 releases don't expect the support to be awesome. If you don't have SP1 then your are already out of support. None of the editions of Visual Studio 2015 (and 2013) officially support TFS 2010 RTM.
I would recommend that you upgrade to TFS 2013, or TFS 2015 at your earliest opportunity. If you need support for that then get a consultant to help who has a good relationship with MSFT.
If your ops team is inside of keeping software up to that's and with the applications support model then you should seriously consider moving to VSO so that you don't have to worry about It any more.
Reinstalling VS 2015 after my Windows 10 debacle, I found that suddenly everything was working including builds! With the server still on TFS 2010. Apparently my problem was that I had the VS 2015 Community Release Candidate, not the final release.

Difference between TFS 2012 and TFS 2013 process templates

We are planning to upgrade from Tfs 2012 to Tfs 2013. Can anyone help me understand the difference in process templates between them? We use all three process templates for different projects.
The changes are very minor, except for:
The introduction of Portfolio backlogs.
Test Plans and test Suites are now Work Item Types (TFS 2013 update 3).
The AgileConfig and CommonProcessConfig files have been merged to a single file inside the template
The minor changes:
Git support for the Source Control options
Stackrank type fields are now hidden by default (because Agile task boards are now features of the Standard CAL).
Tag field support through the API.
The easiest way to visualize all differences is by comparing them through the TFS Team Project Manager which can be downloaded here.
TFS 2013 did not work well with our existing workspaces defined on remote network drives. TFS 2012 did work with this configuration.
After working several hours with our System Administrators, we gave up on trying to get the trying to get the existing network drive workspaces to work with the TFS 2013. Converting the workspaces to local drive locations enabled us to work with TFS 2013.

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