Backing up and Restoring Your Deployment
You can back up the databases upon which Team Foundation Server depends in order to help prevent data loss and reduce the amount of time lost to a hardware or software failure. If you are familiar with backing up and restoring SQL Server databases, you will find the process of backing up and restoring Team Foundation Server very familiar. All of the information required for restoring a Team Foundation Server deployment is stored in SQL Server databases. You do not have to worry about backing up Team Foundation client computers or application-tier servers.
The complexity of backing up and restoring your deployment depends largely on the topology of your deployment and on whether you are restoring data to existing hardware, or if you are restoring a deployment after hardware failure. Backing up and restoring a deployment is also made more complex if you have extended your deployment with SQL Server Reporting Services or SharePoint Products. In addition to the Team Foundation Server databases, you must also back up and restore the databases in those programs that are associated with your deployment.
If one of the servers in your deployment experiences a hardware failure or otherwise becomes unavailable, you can use the procedures in this section to help restore your deployment to an operational state. You will also need to reinstall software on new servers before you restore the databases. You should download the latest version of the Installation Guide for Team Foundation from the Microsoft Web site, as you will need to follow some of the procedures in that guide as part of your disaster recovery efforts.
Late-breaking changes and updates to the products on which Team Foundation Server depends can change the procedures for backing up and restoring your deployment. For the most recent information about how to back up and restore your deployment, see one of the following pages on the Microsoft Web site:
To view this information online, see Backing Up and Restoring Your Deployment.
To download the most recent version of this guidance for offline use, see this page on the Microsoft Web site: Administration Guide for Team Foundation.
Common Tasks
Common Tasks |
Supporting Content |
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Determine the best backup strategy for your deployment: You can review the types of backups available for your data and choose a backup strategy that best suits your business needs. |
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Back up your data: You can schedule jobs to back up the databases that Team Foundation Server uses. You can also back up the encryption key for reporting data. |
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Restore databases from backup: You can restore the databases that Team Foundation Server uses to the same server or servers on which they were installed, or you can restore them to a different server or servers. |
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Recover from a hardware failure: If your application-tier server has a hardware failure, you can install software and configure a new server to act as the application-tier server. If your data-tier server has a hardware failure, you can install software and restore the databases that Team Foundation Server uses to the new server. If the hardware that supports your single-server deployment fails, you can restore it to a new server. |
Restore an Application-Tier Server Restore Data to a Different Server or Instance Restore a Single-Server Deployment to New Hardware Installation Guide for Team Foundation on the Microsoft Web site |
Back up and restore Lab Management components: In this release, backing up and restoring Visual Studio Lab Management requires additional steps. |
Reference
For more information, see the following page on the Microsoft Web site: SQL Server 2008.
See Also
Tasks
Move a Team Project Collection
Concepts
Organizing Your Server with Team Project Collections
Team Foundation Server Architecture