Hosting Team Foundation Server...Lessons Learned, So Far!

Friday I was able to get Team Foundation Server running in the Dev’garten infrastructure, which is hosted in WDG’s Melbourne datacenter. Now, everything was fine when all I was doing was connecting to the URI, but as soon as I started to access the security settings, or create a project, it all went bung.

Why?

Because hosting Team Foundation Server requires a little extra TLC for the SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services bits and the Windows SharePoint Services bits too. See, they aren’t normally setup for “cloud” deployments, however, they do support “cloud” configuration, the only thing being you need to know how to find all the config entry points.

The other thing is, most of the application tier (well, all of it really if you don’t count the database services running on the Bensley metal) is housed in virtual servers that are running on an internal 192.168.x.x network, with no DNS services, with any outside network activity being managed by ISA Server 2004. So any RPC style communication between say Report Manager and the Report Server needs to be able to strip out the host part of https://tfs-svc.devgarten.com/ReportServer for example and resolve that to an IP address (tip for this, get to know \windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts very well).

Phew, anyway, it’s Satdee, and I’ve been trying to get all the bits and pieces working shiny for the TFS build, which it is now, so I’m off to ride my bike!

And for those who are interested in getting a project space to play with on the Dev’garten TFS service, it’s not long now. As the whole lot is now successfully published and running, all I need to do now is work out how to isolate members project spaces, so we don’t get any cross-project mashing happening. As soon as this is resolved, I will publish the beta site to prod and people can start registering.

TTFN :)