When upgrading TFS 2015.1 to TFS 2017.2 do I leave SQL Server 2014 Always On turned on? We have TFS 2015.1 running on SQL Server 2014 with Always on and everything is working fine. Upgrading to TFS 2017.2 and assume I just leave the database server as is. Can I upgrade TFS with Always on running?
Thanks
If you leave TFS pointed at the AG, you need to make sure you have enough space for potential log file growth because the database will be left in FULL recovery mode. TFS does warn you about this during the upgrade.
If you disable the AG and point TFS at a single node, it will upgrade in Simple recovery mode, and you will need to resetup the AG after the upgrade.
Depending on how big your TFS Collection databases are and the amount of free space you have for your logs (and maybe the data files too) depends which you need.
Related
We are looking to carry out the following TFS upgrades in our Production environment:
Upgrade TFS 2010 to TFS 2013.5
Upgrade TFS 2013.5 to TFS 2019
To support both migrations, we have a Windows Server 2019 Standard edition to host the Application Tier. The Data Tier is to be installed on a dedicated SQL box.
The Microsoft website however lists Windows Server 2012 (Essentials, Standard, Datacenter) as the latest server operating system edition required for TFS 2013.
My question therefore is, can we still perform this planned upgrade to TFS 2013 on a newer edition of Windows Server, in our case Windows Server 2019 Standard edition?
I agree with Daniel, please follow the documentation exactly.
Since you can upgrade from TFS 2010 --> TFS 2012.3 --> TFS 2019, or from TFS 2010 --> TFS 2013.5 --> TFS 2019, you could consider trying to upgrade from TFS 2010 to TFS 2012.3 or TFS 2013.5 on the same Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise server, and then migrate to Windows Server 2019 Standard edition when upgrade to DevOps Server 2019.1.1(TFS 2019.1.1).
"Supported" means "tested and known to work". Later OS versions haven't been tested and may not work, or TFS may not even install in the first place.
I've done dozens of TFS upgrades in my day. My suggestion is to follow the documentation provided by Microsoft exactly. If an OS isn't listed as a supported OS, then don't use that OS.
So after much to-ing and fro-ing and numerous debates and suggestions from various sources on Stackoverflow, in the end this is how I managed to successfully complete my migration upgrade from TFS 2010 to Azure DevOps Server (TFS) 2019.1
There are however 5 very important points I wish to emphasise:
This was a complete migration upgrade (not an In-place upgrade) and so each move to a later TFS version was done using new/replacement hardware.
Both upgrades were done, based on the excellent YouTube tutorial by Mohamed Radwan which can be found here and relies heavily on the TFSBackup and TFSRestore utilities, both of which have shipped with all versions of TFS, I believe since the 2012 edition.
I only migrated the TfsConfiguration database and our Project database.
There was no migration of SharePoint.
There was no migration of Reporting Services.
We had no scheduled backups set up in the TFS 2010 Admin console.
TFS 2010 to TFS 2013 - Some Useful Points to Note
The backup of my TFS 2010 databases were executed from the Tools directory of the TFS 2013 instance (once installed), on the new dedicated hardware for my app tier.
Following a successful database restore using the TFSRestore utility, there are generally three key tasks required which use the TFSConfig tool to ensure data integrity between the two TFS instances aren't compromised or corrupted. These are the PrepareClone, ChangeServerID and RemapDB tasks executed in this same order.
The PrepareClone task failed when executed and after days of trying to troubleshoot the issue, I gave up in the end due mainly to the fact that the PrepareClone command removes information about scheduled backups, SharePoint, and Reporting resources from an Azure DevOps Server deployment and is used in two circumstances:
When you move a deployment to new hardware but want to keep using the old deployment.
When you clone an Azure DevOps Server deployment.
We didn't have any scheduled backups, SharePoint or Reporting Services included within the scope of our migration and were certainly not planning to keep using the old deployment long-term, except for a few days of validation and testing of the migration upgrade. As such, I ignored the error.
I was also counting on the fact that if the ChangeServerID command run successfully, this would ensure that the two instances were now discrete anyway, having been assigned unique GUIDs. Fortunately, the ChangeServerID task succeeded.
I also then executed the RemapDB command but in truth this wasn't even required as the ChangeServerID command had already completed the remapping task.
From this point on, the migration went like a dream and there was absolutely no issues encountered. Another key point to add, the backup of our TFS 2010 instance was done only after I'd ensured there was no user logged onto the system and following the backup, I took the 2010 instance completely offline.
TFS 2013 to Azure DevOps Server (TFS) 2019.1 - Some Useful Points to Note
Again using the TFSBackup and TFSRestore utilities (this time from the Azure DevOps Server 2019.1 Tools directory) and pretty much repeating the steps for the previous migration upgrade, I managed to get us onto our target 2019 instance without single hitch.
Even better, with Azure DevOps 2019, the TFSConfig PrepareClone, ChangeServerID and RemapDB tasks have been incorporated into the app tier configuration wizard, meaning you're not required to manually run them from the commandline. The tool takes care of it for you in its entirety, which is excellent!!
The new Pre-Production Upgrade option enabled me to simulate and somehow perform a dry-run of the final upgrade, another excellent feature incorporated into the Server Configuration Wizard for Azure DevOps Server 2019.1
My Concluding Remarks
Judging by how easy and simple it was to use, its heavy use of automation and clearly being far less likely to result in any disaster, I am rather surprised the TFSBackup and TFSRestore tools aren't recommended as perhaps the current best migration options, subject of course to the type of migration targeted.
I have done TFS upgrades in the past which were based on the older process of quiescing the project collection, detaching and re-attaching the database(s) to the target instance, etc, etc and must admit there's hardly any chance I'd be going back to that in future if I can help it, as the TFSBackup and TFSRestore tools are a much, much better, safer and reliable option in my view.
Hopefully, this feedback will help the next person who may embark on a similar journey to upgrade TFS from the 2010 edition to a later version.
We are trying to upgrade our TFS 2013 Update 5 to TFS 2018 Update 2. I have checked this thread to make sure we meet the prerequisites.
From the list, it looks like we met the prerequisites, but when i run the TFS2018 installer it gives me an error saying there is no direct upgrade path from 2013 to 2018. Im not sure why we are getting this error when i looked at the Microsoft site, there is a direct upgrade from TFS2013 update 5 to TFS2018. What am i missing?
Here are our specs on our TFS 2013:
SQL: SQL Server 2016 SP2
OS: Windows Server 2012 R2
TFS: TFS 2013 Update5
P.S. we moved the databases to a SQL server 2016 from a 2014 SQL just to comply with the prerequisites.
Ahh yes, the added error message makes sense. What the TFS installer is telling you is that it can't perform the upgrade while TFS 2013 is installed and running on that server.
You first have to uninstall the Application Tier and Build Services on the machine. This doesn't impact your databases in any way.
Then you can install TFS 2018.2 or 3 directly into that server, point it to the existing SQL databases and it will ask you whether you want to upgrade those.
You'll need to verify a few server settings, plus decide whether you want to enable SSH and Search on this machine.
After the integrity check the installer will install the TFS Application tier and start the database upgrade process.
Only of you're on TFS 2005 or 20008 do you need to perform this step multiple times. first with the 2010 installer before you can take it to 2018. This is what's meant by 'not possible to do a direct upgrade' in some parts of the docs and which confused me at first.
Basically we have existing TFS 2013 running in PROD, can we just install TFS 2018 in a new machine and restore the DB?
Please guide me with the upgrade from 2013 to 2018
I'm afraid your SQL Server version doesn't meet TFS 2018's requirement. As TFS 2018 only supports SQL Server 2017 and SQL Server 2016 (minimum SP1).
You need to go through article Upgrade your deployment to the latest version of TFS before doing upgrade. And follow the steps in article Upgrade scenario walkthrough for Team Foundation Server to upgrade your TFS. Summarize the steps here:
Prepare your environment. The first step is to check the system requirements for TFS 2018. Upgrade SQL Server is
necessary for your scenario. Including SQL Server, you also need to check other system
requirements and prepare the environment.
Expect the best, prepare for the worst. You must have a complete and consistent set of database backups in case something
goes wrong.
Do the upgrade. Once the preparation is done, you'll need to install the new version of TFS to get new binaries, and then run
through the upgrade wizard to upgrade your databases.
Configure new features. Depending on what version you upgraded from, you may need to configure each team project to gain access
to some of the new features made available.
Here is a useful blog for your reference:
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/rob/2016/12/22/upgrading-from-tfs-2013-to-tfs-2017/
Even if the detach/attach upgrade is possible, it is not recommended to go that way and you could find more details here and here why is that. You could still go that route but at least you would be aware of the possible issues.
For the safest way to go here, would be to make an actual upgrade of your systems from TFS 2013 to TFS 2018. However, due to the TFS requirements, you would have to make something like that approach to make it possible:
From TFS 2013 upgrade to either TFS 2015 or TFS 2017. Based on your current SQL Server that you are using, if that is SQL Server 2012 you would have to go first to TFS 2015, upgrade your SQL Server to be SQL Server 2016 (minimum SP1), and afterwards proceed with the second upgrade to TFS 2018.
I have installed TFS 2010 on a new server (vmware running windows server 2008 r2) and restored from backup my old TFS 2005 Database onto the new server. The installation seems to have succeeded - I can create a NEW TFS 2010 team project and I can do checkin/checkout for it.
I made a mistake, however, with the TFS 2010 configuration manager - I ran the advanced configration wizard and NOT the upgrade wizard.
Now I don't see my old TFS 2005 team project and the upgrade wizard is now disabled.
In order to fix my mistake I tried this:
TFSServiceControl quiesce
tfsconfig import /sqlInstance:MyServer\DBinstanceName /collectionName:MyImported /confirmed
This is the output of this commands:
TF255152: Service is not running: TFSJobAgent
The upgrade of the project collection MyImported has been queued.
Waiting on the upgrade operation to complete.
...and now I am waiting for too much time for this operation to complete (my version control DB is 15 GB).
How can I import my old TFS 2005 team project to the new TFS 2010 server?
Here you go it supports inplace upgrades...
If you have to do a migration and it is currently jacked up then I would simply start from scratch. You'll spend far less time doing this than trying to fix the issues.
If you choose an install (advance configuration wizard in your case) instead of an upgrade, what happens is that new configuration and default collection databases are created for you, and your restored 2005 databases are not touched.
The safest way to deal with this issue is, like Chris suggested, to start from scratch. You wouldn't need to restore your 2005 databases again though, all you need to do is to uninstall TFS, make sure the new Tfs_Configuration and Tfs_DefaultCollection databases got deleted, and reinstall TFS and configure again with the Upgrade wizard. Installing TFS 2010 should be fast.
I have TFS 2015 in Windows server 2008r2, for the disaster recovery and some precautions I would like to do the existing TFS backup and restoring them to another server, what is the best way to do this ?
TFS version is 2015 update 4 and SQL server 2014.
Please suggest me something.
It is a well documented process that is pretty prevalent online.
The official documentation is here
You will backup databases (config and collection)
Restore
Install and configure TFS app tier only and point it to the restored databases.