Team Build Requirements for Team Foundation
To take advantage of the Team Foundation Build feature, you can designate one or more computers in the Visual Studio Team System environment as build computers. Team Foundation Build has specific hardware and software requirements. When you plan to deploy Team Foundation Build computers, you should understand requirements that are specific to your business needs.
Hardware and Software Requirements
Team Foundation Build provides the functionality of a public build lab. With Team Foundation Build, enterprise build managers can synchronize the sources, build the application, run build associated unit tests, perform code analysis, release builds on a file server, and publish build reports. If you want to run tests during builds, you must install Visual Studio Team System Test Edition on the build computer. If you want to run code analysis, you must install Visual Studio Team System Development Edition on the build computer.
Build result data are propagated to the warehouse for historical reporting. Team Foundation Build works with other Visual Studio Team System tools during the build process. This includes source control and work item tracking. A range of recommended server requirements are discussed in the previous sections. For more information, see Team Foundation Server Requirements. In addition, if you want to deploy across multiple languages, you must plan for what languages you want to support across your deployment.
Hardware Requirements
The following table shows the recommended hardware requirements to deploy Team Foundation Build, depending on the number of users and the number of files being built.
Configuration |
Build time |
CPU |
HD |
Memory |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Minimal, 1-2 projects, 5-20 users |
30 minutes |
single processor, 766 MHz |
8 GB |
256 MB |
Small, 2-20 projects, 20-100 users |
30 minutes to 2 hours |
single processor, 1.5 GHz |
30 GB |
512 MB |
Medium, more than 20 projects, 100 to 250 users |
2 hours to 5 hours |
single processor, 2.6 GHz |
50 GB |
1 GB |
Large, more than 50 projects, 250 to 500 users |
3 hours to 7 hours |
dual processors, 2.8 GHz |
80 GB |
2 GB |
The guidelines presented here are provided as general guidance for hardware planning. Build performance will vary greatly based on the source code on a given server, and the complexity of the build process.
The server that will run Team Foundation Build should have a reliable network connection with a minimum bandwidth of 1 Mbps and a latency maximum of 350ms. If your build performance does not meet your expectations, consider upgrading your hardware configuration.
If there is a firewall between the Team Foundation Build computer and the Team Foundation Server, you need to modify the firewall so that the Team Foundation Build computer and the Team Foundation Server can communicate. In some cases, for example, if you are running tests during build, the Team Foundation Server must access the drop location on the build computer. In such cases there should be no firewall between the two.
Additional Hardware Considerations
In addition to the recommended hardware, you should consider additional hardware for critical servers, such as redundant power supplies and redundant fans.
You should not use your Team Foundation Server as your build computer. Builds should be performed on separate computers. Because of the high demands put on build computers at build time, running builds on a Team Foundation Server could lead to server unavailability and poor performance.
Software Requirements
The following table shows the required software for Team Foundation Build computers.
Software |
Version |
|---|---|
Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1 (SP1), Service Pack 2 (SP2), Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, or Windows XP Professional |
See the Team Foundation Installation Guide |
.NET Framework |
2.0 |
In addition to the required software, consider whether you want to install additional management or security software, such as backup software or firewalls. For more specific guidance for Team Foundation Build software requirements, see the Team Foundation Installation Guide. You can download the latest version of the Team Foundation Installation Guide from the Microsoft Download Center (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=79226).
Language Requirements
To avoid confusion and simplify operation, a Team Foundation Build deployment should be configured to use the same language as the computer's operating system and that of Team Foundation Server. However, you can install another language version of Team Foundation Build on an English-language server as long as that language matches that of the Team Foundation Server deployment.
See Also
Concepts
Team Foundation Server Requirements
Test Rig Requirements for Team System
Clients for Team Foundation Server