Configure Lab Management for TFS 2013

This blog post will cover installation of SCVMM console on the TFS application tier and the TFS server level and team project collection level configurations required to enable lab management. You should have a setup of SCVMM 2012 R2 ready, before proceeding to these steps. To install and configure SCVMM to be used with lab management, please refer this article.

Once we are done with the configurations from the TFS server, please refer this article , to configure test controllers and create lab environments.

To enable communication between TFS server and the SCVMM server, we need to install the SCVMM Administrator console on the TFS Application tier machine. In case your deployment has more than one application tier server, this should be installed on each of the application tier server.

Note: This is required only if the SCVMM server and TFS Application tier are installed on separate machines.

Installing the SCVMM Administrator Console on the TFS Application Tier machine

· Log on to the TFS application tier as Administrator account that is a member of the administrator role in SCVMM and run the setup for SCVMM 2012 R2.

· Click on Install.

· On the Select features to add page, choose VMM Console and click next.

· Accept the license terms

· Click on Next on the following screens, and click on install once the pre-requisites check has passed.

· Click on Close once the setup is completed.

Configuring Lab Management from TFS Administration Console

· We will register the SCVMM server with the TFS server.

· Once that is done, we should be able to create environments and store them to library shares.

Permissions Required

· The TFS service account should be a member of the SCVMM Administrator role. In case the service account is not a part of this group, you will receive a user name and password prompt while adding the SCVMM server. You can enter an account that is already a member of the SCVMM Administrator role, and the TFS service account will be automatically added to the role.

· To manually add the TFS service account to SCVMM Administrator role, navigate to Settings->Security->User Roles and Administrator in the SCVMM server, and then add the account.

Configuration

· To configure lab management, log on to the TFS machine as administrator and open up TFS Administration console.

· Click on Lab Management tab under the Application Tier node and choose Configure.

· On the Virtual Machine Manager tab, key in the SCVMM server name, and click on test. In case you receive a prompt for user name and password, enter an account that is a member of the SCVMM Administrator role.

· Click on Test to verify the communication between TFS server and SCVMM server.

· Network isolation can be used to enable multiple copies of the same environment to run simultaneously without having conflicts related to computer name and DNS.

· Type the range of IP addresses that should be assigned to the virtual machines in an environment, when a network isolated environment is created.

· DNS Suffix accepts the DNS suffix that will be assigned to the environment during the creation of an isolated network. Enter a DNS suffix and click on Test to validate it.

· Click on OK to complete the configuration.

· If there are multiple Application Tiers in your deployment of TFS, login to each of the machines, and on the Lab Management tab, choose Reconfigure.

· Click on Test on the Virtual Machine Manager tab to verify that the machine is able to communicate with the SCVMM server.

Configure Lab Management for the project collections

· In the TFS administration console, choose Team Project collections under the Application Tier node and choose the team project collection with which lab management is to be configured.

· Click on the Lab Management tab and choose Configure Library Shares.

· On the following dialogue box, click add and verify.

· Choose one or more library shares that will be used with this team project collection and click on Add. Setup will now verify the connectivity between TFS server and the library share.

· If the auto provision option is checked, the library share will be added to all the team projects in the collection, and will be added to the new team projects, during creation.

Content created by – Sreeraj Rajendran
Content reviewed by – Romit Gulati