Can Team Foundation Build Services be installed on another computer or virtual machine?
I am working on automating the build process with Team Foundation Build 2010. When our TFS server was installed, whoever installed it did not install the build config services, so this node is missing from the TFS admin console. I'm sure I know the answer to this question, but I wanted to check in case I was missing something. I also ask because the TFS server is a production server and my supervisors don't want to install anything on that server. Is it possible to install Build Services on another computer or VM and still have a node build configuration in the TFS Admin Console? I know that the build controller as well as the build agent can be installed on another machine or virtual machine. I just wanted clarification in the Build Configuration Services section. Thanks you
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Absolutely! This is actually a very typical scenario. I generally don't recommend people install build services on any of the application tier servers. When you install only build features, the TFS Admin Console will only show build features.
By installing it on separate machines, you can create a build controller build farm with multiple build agents. It scales very well.
Build servers will be considered "production" servers in my opinion. However, they do not have the same disaster recovery or monitoring requirements. If a construction vehicle dies, just draw another one and add it to the pool. This is essentially how the elastic build service for the Team Foundation Service (like TFS Preview) works . They are destroyed after each use.
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