To Proxy or Not to Proxy

Recently, I received e-mail asking if performance gains could be realized by using Team Foundation Server Proxy in a non-distributed scenario. That is, installing Team Foundation Server Proxy for local use. I suspected that Team Foundation Server already utilizes the proxy's caching capability, so I sent an e-mail to Doug Neumann, who confirmed my suspicion.

The caching functionality that is in the Team Foundation Server Proxy is also in Team Foundation Server, so the only real benefit to running the proxy in a LAN scenario is to offload the processing from the application tier.  However, we're more limited by the data tier than we are the application tier, so you won't experience much of a difference in that regard.  Also, all of Team Foundation Server traffic is HTTP. Using the proxy doesn't change that.

Comments

• Anonymous
  September 28, 2005
  Rob,
  
  I am wondering what the point is to this proxy? When using Foundation Server over the internet it does not souly work with http. You also need a VPN, making it into a LAN anyway. Or do I misunderstand?
  
  Kind regards, Edward
• Anonymous
  September 29, 2005
  Edward, please see Buck's post for details: http://blogs.msdn.com/buckh/archive/2005/09/21/472306.aspx
• Anonymous
  October 08, 2005
  Rob,
  
  How many proxy servers can be set up? Suppose we have offices in Chicago, New York, Minneapolis. Could we set up a proxy in each office?
  
  Thanks!
• Anonymous
  October 08, 2005
  You can have multiple proxies per Team Foundation Server installation.
• Anonymous
  October 09, 2005
  Thanks very much for the response. A follow up question: Do these proxy servers have to be in the same domain as the TFS? Thanks again for your help.