Create Back Up Schedule and Plan

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This fourth topic in the Single-Server Installation tutorial teaches you how to configure backups for a single-server deployment of Team Foundation Server (TFS) that also uses SharePoint Foundation 2010 and SQL Server Reporting Services. All of these products are installed on the same server.

Note

Before the release of Cumulative Update 2, there was a backup and restore power tool available for Team Foundation Server 2012. This tool is not compatible with the Scheduled Backups feature now available in this update. If you installed this tool before Cumulative Update 2, the update will uninstall the tool for you and attempt to import your settings into the Scheduled Backups feature. Do not install the power tool after installing Cumulative Update 2.

The examples in this tutorial topic follow Jill, an IT Administrator at the fictitious company, Fabrikam, Inc., as she installs and deploys Team Foundation Server in a single-server configuration in order to support her software development teams.

If you administer systems, you're probably already familiar with all the reasons why a good backup set is crucial. No one wants to be the administrator of a server that goes down without a complete set of backups in place. Fortunately, you can back up data for TFS by using the Scheduled Backups tool in the administration console. If you regularly back up those databases, you reduce the risk of losing productivity or data because of equipment failure or other unexpected events. Unlike previous methods, this tool also backs up the SharePoint databases that TFS uses, if TFS is configured to use SharePoint.

Important

If you have not installed Cumulative Update 2, or your deployment has specific backup requirements not met by the Scheduled Backups features, you can manually configure backups for your deployment. For more information, see Manually Back Up Team Foundation Server.

In addition, if you are using the Enterprise or Datacenter edition of SQL Server and you want to restore the collection and configuration databases to a Standard edition of SQL Server then—before you make the backup—you must turn off SQL Server compression by following the steps in the Microsoft Knowledge Base article.

Required Permissions

To perform the procedures in this tutorial, you must be a member of both of the following groups:

  • The Administrators security group on the server that is running the administration console for Team Foundation.

  • The SQL Server System Administrator security group. In addition, the service account for TFS (TFSService) must have SQL Server Perform Back Up and Create Maintenance Plan permissions set to Allow on each instance of SQL Server that hosts the databases that you want to back up, and Full Control on the network share, folder, or storage device where the backups will be kept. 

  • The Farm Administrators group in SharePoint Foundation 2010, or an account with the permissions required to back up the farm.

Create a backup plan

  1. Open the administration console for TFS and on the Scheduled Backups page, launch the wizard for creating a backup schedule.

    The Schedule Backups node in the console

    Tip

    If you don't see the Scheduled Backups node in the administration console, make sure that you have applied Cumulative Update 2.

  2. Backups must be stored on a network-accessible location, and the service account for TFS must have Full Control access to that location. You can also choose how long a backup set will be kept, and the file extensions used for backup types.

    Specify the network path for the backups

  3. If your server is configured with SMTP support, you can select email alerts for specific events. If not, all selections will be greyed out.

    Alerts are only available if SMTP is configured

  4. Choose between two default schedules, or create your own custom schedule.

    Choose a preconfigured or custom schedule

  5. Complete the wizard. If your deployment uses reporting, you will be prompted for a password in order to back up the encryption key for reporting.

    The wizard confirms success

  6. Once scheduled backups have been configured, you can allow them to run as scheduled. You can also choose to take an immediate backup, which will back up your data right away while leaving your scheduled plan in place. This is particularly recommended if your scheduled backups will not occur for a significant amount of time, or if you do not already have a recent backup available.

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