Upgrading my Free trial Azure Devops version to LIcensed - tfs

I am trying to Upgrade my free trial Azure DevOps to a licensed version but i don't see any options to apply my licenses.
Is there a way to apply our new licenses without having to re-install?

In earlier versions, TFS included code which required a valid product key to be present in order for the server to start up.
Since TFS 2015.2, TFS no longer distinguish the versions in this way, so there is no product key left on the TFS Admin console Product Information Summary page to display. And the TfsConfig License command is not available since TFS 2015.2.
If your TFS is in a Trial, it will not stop work immediately. If your trial expires, you will see a banner in most pages of the TFS Web UI. You would have enough time to complete trial.After you get the trial expiration warning message, you could select the 'complete the trial of my TFS Deployment'. There does not have a field to let you input the TFS Key.
What's more, when the trial is completed, all users should be assigned an appropriate access level based on the licenses they have. An unlimited number of users who only need access to work items can be added as Stakeholders and will not require any license. Most other users who access your server will require a license.
To use later TFS version, need to buy monthly access. You could find more information in this link:https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/docs/setup-admin/buy-access-tfs-test-hub
You can refer to this blog and these cases(#1,#2).

Related

Azure DevOps on-premise costs

Seems strange asking this on SO but that's what MS want us to do so here goes...
I'm looking at setting up an on-premise Azure DevOps 2019 server, but as usual the licensing and costs aren't very transparent.
Our dev team are likely to be getting Visual Studio Pro subscriptions, which I believe comes with a DevOps server license and CALs. What happens if we stop these subscriptions - does it mean we can no longer use our on-premise DevOps server?
I'm not very clear on what "extras" we may need to pay for (extensions, pipelines), and I don't want to be hit by any surprises. The essential requirements are:
Be able to trigger a build on check-in. I can't tell if this is a built-in feature or requires some kind of extension and/or pipeline (and if so free or not?)
Use build tasks to create NuGet packages and host these on the in-house server. Again, does this require any paid extensions or pipelines?
There should be no limits on monthly build time (unlike VSTS which I believe is 240 minutes)
To my best understanding:
You can run Azure DevOps Server 2019 with at least one Visual Studio Professional or Enterprise license.
The features available to each user are based on the licence assigned to the user: Stakeholders (no license) get the very basics, Basic access (Professional) gives you most of the features, Enterprise gives you all the features.
The most notable differences between Basic and Enterprise are:
View Releases and Manage Approvals
Artifacts Microsoft published
Azure DevOps Extensions
However, per this annoucement, Artifacts are now included in the Basic/professional license.
So with only professional licenses you should be good for triggering builds, publishing and using nuget-packages via Artifact feeds. I'd think that installing extensions might require Enterprise user and haven't tested "View Releases and Manage Approvals" without Enterprise license yet. That seems to have changed from older TFS we've been using, in which Basic users were able to create and view releases.
So would recommend getting at least one Enterprise license, in any case.
one and two are free, third one is free with self hosted agent and 1800 minutes with hosted agent, if you are an opensource project you have lots of free compute time (dont think this applies to Azure Devops server though).
Build and release pipelines are included in Azure Devops Server 2019. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/server/release-notes/azuredevops2019?view=azure-devops#changes-to-artifacts-and-release-management-deployment-pipeline-licensing

How to add a license to TeamFoundation 2018?

I am attempting to get TeamFoundation Server up and running and wanted to get it licensed before letting the programmers loose on it.
However, there does not seem to be a place to enter in my license key in the software. On their site, it states that it should be done in the Team Foundation Server Administration Console and that I should be looking for the 'License Type' and 'Product ID' sections, but I do not have these on my server.
Where do I plug in the license key, if I don't have those options?
On this post, it shows how it is supposed to look like - How to get current TFS license type?
Since TFS 2015.2, it no longer requires you to have a valid product key to be present.
Everyone can install TFS and it now depends on the user licenses. A team of up to 5 is free and thereafter you have to follow Microsofts licensing terms by buying monthly access to each member.
You can find more at this link: https://learn.microsoft.com/da-dk/azure/devops/organizations/billing/buy-access-tfs-test-hub?view=tfs-2018&viewFallbackFrom=vsts

Does the TFS Administator have to have MSDN?

I have a TFS Administrator who does not develop or use Visual Studio. They only use TFS through the Web UI. Do they need to have an MSDN, all they are really doing is setting access levels.
TFS is licensed on a Server/CAL model. Thus, you need 1 Server license for the TFS server and 1 TFS CAL (client access license) for each user that will use TFS features.
That TFS CAL covers the usage no matter how the user accesses TFS (i.e. Visual Studio, Eclipse, Web Access client, Excel, MSProject, 3rd party tool, ect, etc).
Client access licenses (CALs) aren’t required for people who just access work items – assign them “Stakeholder” access, which is free.
So in your scenario, to manage the TFS they need CALs (client access license), Visual Studio/MSDN subscription is needed.
The two ways to acquire TFS CALs are:
Purchase a TFS User CAL
1 TFS CAL (and 1 TFS Server license) is included in each Visual
Studio/MSDN subscription. Thus, anyone who has an active MSDN
subscription assigned to them is covered with a TFS CAL.
Client access licenses (CALs) aren’t required for people who just
access work items – assign them “Stakeholder” access, which is
free.
Extensions to TFS such as Test Manager, Package Management,
and Private Pipelines require an additional purchase. Some TFS
Extensions are included with Visual Studio Enterprise subscriptions
and many others are free. Paid extensions can also be purchased
monthly, no Visual Studio subscription is required.
More details please refer below two blogs:
Understand TFS Licensing
Team Foundation Server 2018 Licensing

How to change license key for TFS 2018

I am new to TFS admin configuration. I have installed a TFS 2018 in one of the server and now facing connectivity issue to MTM.
So I came to know that I should have a valid license and I also got the license.
Can anyone tell meWhere or How to upgrade my TFS 2018 License
Thanks
To license TFS 2018, you’ll need a TFS server license and a
Windows operating system license (Windows Server is best) for each
machine running TFS, plus a client access license for each person
connecting to TFS. Client access licenses (CALs) aren’t required for
people who just access work items – assign them “Stakeholder” access,
which is free.
Extensions to TFS such as Test Manager, Package Management, and
Private Pipelines require an additional purchase. Some TFS Extensions
are included with Visual Studio Enterprise subscriptions and many
others are free. Paid extensions can also be purchased monthly, no
Visual Studio subscription is required.
In your case, for every MSDN subscription that you own, you will also have a TFS server licenses. So, theoretically, you could install as many TFS servers as you have MSDN subscriptions.
To use the features MTM, you must have either a Visual Studio
Enterprise subscription, or have installed the Test Manager
extension available from Visual Studio Marketplace.
More details please refer: Connect Microsoft Test Manager to your team project and test plan
Besides, If you want to double confirm this and know more information about TFS license, you could call 1-800-426-9400, Monday through Friday, 6:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M. (Pacific Time) to speak directly to a Microsoft licensing specialist, and you can get more detail information from there. Worldwide customers can use the Guide to Worldwide Microsoft Licensing Sites to find contact information in their locations: http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/

Issues with TFS Aggregator implementation

We used TFS Aggregator to automatic update the User Story's state according to its sons state changes and also to automatic Update User Story's state of other project (if they are related).
Also important to mention that we hire an external freelance to help us doing it. When we tested it on his environment - it worked well. But when deploy it in
our environment - there's no change, the new functionality doesn't work.
what you recommend us to check ?
what can be the reasons for this integration problem?
What actions should we take?
Your advises are more than welcome!
First, try to follow the steps of installation on this website to install the plugin: https://github.com/tfsaggregator/tfsaggregator/wiki/Install
If it still doesn't work. Here is the troubleshooting page you can refer to: TFS Aggregator Troubleshooting:
You are using the right version of this server side plugin for the
right server. You can get multiple releases of this plugin at website
https://github.com/tfsaggregator/tfsaggregator
You have updated a work item that triggers a rule. (The TFS
Aggregation only works once a work item that has aggregation rules on
it is updated. This may change in a future version.)
If the rule navigates between work items, work items have a proper
Link (e.g. Parent-Child).
You copied the DLLs and the Policies file to the plugins location on
all TFS Application Tier Servers (Usually at: :\Program
Files\Microsoft Team Foundation Server {version}\Application Tier\Web
Services\bin\Plugins)
You have valid names for source and destination fields in
TFSAggregator2.ServerPlugin.policies.
When you saved the file you saved it as UTF-8 encoding (in Notepad++
it is called “utf-8 without BOM”).
You have given permission to the user running the plugin, e.g. add
the "TFS Service Account" to the Project Collection Administrators
TFS Group.
You may have to do this from the commandline using tfssecurity
/collection:http://server:8080/tfs/DefaultCollection /g+ "Project
Collection administrators" "LOCAL SERVICE" if your service account is
either LocalService, NetworkService or any other Windows Well-known
identity, since they are no longer shown in the permission UI.
When using the Impersonation option, make sure the user executing the
plugin (generally the TFS Service account) has the "Make requests on
behalf of others" permission at the server level
If you upgraded your TFS from 2013.x to 2015.* and from 2015rtm to
2015.1 and did not uninstall the TFS Aggregator before doing this TFS upgrade the aggregator does not work. Remove the TFS Aggregator from
the TFS 2013 Program Files folder or run the uninstall of the TFS
Aggegrator (backup your policies!). Then re-install the TFS
Aggegrator setup or install manually for TFS 2015 as described here.
Every TFS version has its "own" assembly for the aggregator so it is
important to use the right version against the right TFS.

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