Upgrading Team Foundation Server can be a daunting task. Be assured that things have become easier and if you follow this guide, it will minimize your downtime.
In this page we will look at performing an in-place upgrade from TFS 2013 Update 4 to TFS 2015. In this walkthrough, we assume you are currently using a single server configuration, but might want to separate your SQL Server from your TFS server. We also assume you have a DNS entry setup for external access at tfs.northwind.com.
If you still need help, visit Application Lifecycle Management and book in a consultant.
It is important that while you're upgrading, nobody can check in. Any check-ins after you backup your database will be lost.
To make sure that nobody can change anything during the upgrade, follow these steps.
After upgrading TFS, you should do a quick smoke test to ensure TFS is running as expected.
It is important to get another developer to check the migration for issues.
Always plan for a catastrophic disaster. This means backing up your environment, and making sure you have a working plan to recover from that backup should you need to.
Once you have prepared your environment by creating backups, testing your rollback plan, and set your Project Collections to be offline, you're ready to run the setup process that will perform the upgrade.
After upgrading, some third-party tools will no longer work. Check for updates for these tools.
There are two main ways to move from TFS 2013 Update 4 to TFS 2015:
More steps will be required to integrate your SharePoint site and set up your Build servers.
Run the excellent DogFoodStats queries:
- For TFS 2010 - from Grant Holliday - TFS2010: SQL Queries for TFS Statistics .
- For TFS 2012 – update from Erin Dormier -TFS Internal Usage Statistics – 1st Half CY 2013
Running the DogFoodStats queries over the new TFS 2015 server is a good way to see if the upgrade was successful.
You should check the new values against the stats you recorded from your TFS 2015 Update 4 databases.
- Do you disable connections for TFS 2015 migration?
- Do you do a quick test after the TFS 2015 migration finishes?
- Do you get a developer to test the TFS 2015 migration?
- Do you have a rollback plan for TFS 2015 migration?
- Do you know how to upgrade your TFS2013 Update 4 system? (the big one)
- Do you know to upgrade your third party tools for TFS 2015?
- Do you know your TFS 2015 migration choices?
- Do you plan your additional steps for TFS 2015 migration?
- Do you run your dog food stats (before TFS 2015 migration)?
- Do you run Dog Food Stats (after TFS 2015 migration)?
- Do you turn off Database Mirroring before Upgrading your TFS databases?
- Do you verify that your server meets the minimum requirements?