Course:

Course Description

This 4-day deep dive course is designed for team members who are responsible for the installation, configuration, and administration of Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2018. This course teaches not only the technical know-how to successfully run your TFS infrastructure, but also best practices based on industry experience.

This course combines both technical presentations as well as hands-on lab exercises designed to ensure attendees gain a solid, practical understanding of how to administer TFS 2018 in modern work environments.

Key topics covered in this course include product installation, configuring security & permissions, reporting, customisation, and installing extensions from the Visual Studio marketplace. The course also covers both build and release management and how to configure environments to support modern DevOps best practices.

If you’re responsible for looking after your organisation’s TFS server, then this is the course for you.

Outline

Module 1 – Introducing the Microsoft Visual Studio family

What’s new in Visual Studio
Overview of the Visual Studio family
Overview of product features
A lap around Visual Studio Team Services
Project workflow across the Visual Studio suite of products

Module 2 – Planning a TFS 2018 Deployment

Overview of TFS architecture
Planning a TFS deployment
An overview of product licensing
SharePoint and Project Server integration

Module 3 – Installing TFS

Installing and configuring TFS prerequisites
TFS installation
Installing Code Search
Optimising your Code Search deployment

Module 4 – Upgrading to TFS 2018

Understanding upgrades and updates
In-place vs migration-based upgrades
Performing your upgrade

Module 5 – Managing TFS Instances

Using the TFS Administration Console
Configuring SMTP support for TFS
TFS server health monitoring
Changing service accounts
Viewing installed updates

Module 6 – TFS Backup and Restore

TFS Backup and Restore strategies
Understanding the TFS databases
Creating a backup schedule
The restore process
Refreshing the client data cache

Module 7 – Creating and Managing Team Projects

Planning your projects and collections
Creating Team Project Collections
Creating Team Projects
Creating Project Welcome pages
Renaming and deleting Team Projects

Module 8 – Configuring Team Project Level Security

Overview of TFS security
Configuring security using standard groups
Setting user access levels for your server
Understanding and configuring Teams

Module 9 – Advanced Security and Permissions

Fine-grain security options
TFS server level permissions
Setting permissions at the Team Project Collection level
Restricting access in TFS
Using command line tools for managing security

Module 10 – Source Control Configuration

Setting project-wide source control settings
Understanding workspaces
Using the TFS command line utility
Using the TFS Rollback command
Using the TFS Proxy to improve performance
Backward compatibility using the MSSCCI provider

Module 11 – Installing and managing extensions

Introducing the Visual Studio Marketplace
Installing extensions from the Marketplace
Managing extension requests
Paid extensions and understanding billing

Module 12 – Work Items

Overview of work items
Creating custom queries
Work item charting and pinning charts
Work item tagging
Configuring and managing notifications

Module 13 – Managing Process Templates

Understanding process templates
Basics of template customisation
Adding new fields to Work Item Types
Updating forms for new and legacy clients
Updating an upgraded Team Project

Module 14 – Reporting

Understanding the reporting architecture
Adding new reports
Creating ad-hoc reports using Excel
TFS Warehouse and OLAP Cube overview
Changing the Data Warehouse and Analysis Services Cube processing frequency
Rebuild the Data Warehouse and Analysis Services Cube

Module 15 – Configuring build and release infrastructure

Overview of build and release infrastructure
Creating agent pools and queues
Installing and configuring agents
Scaling your agent pool infrastructure
Overview of non-Windows agents

Audience

This course is designed for administrators and software development professionals responsible for the day-to-day administration and operation of a Team Foundation Server. Every organisation using TFS should have at least one or two “TFS champions” who are skilled in the topics and areas covered in this course.

Prerequisites

Attendees should have some familiarity with installations of server products such as operating systems, SQL server, etc. Some experience using Visual Studio would also be beneficial.

What You Will Learn

At the completion of this course, attendees will be able to:

Plan your TFS deployment and install TFS 2018 in a variety of topologies
Determine appropriate service accounts
Plan a migration and/or upgrade to TFS 2018
Understand the value of quarterly updates and how to install them
Install, configure, and optimize the Code Search feature
Troubleshoot issues with Code Search
Configure SMTP support and customise email alerts
Install extensions from the Visual Studio Marketplace
Keep your TFS data safe using backup and restore
Monitor the health and performance of your TFS server
Plan your project hierarchies using Team Projects and Team Project Collections
Create, modify, rename, and delete Team Projects and Team Project Collections
Configure standard role-based security for team projects
Use advanced security to manage fine-grained security
Configure version control settings, including backward compatibility
Customise the process template to better suit your teams’ requirements
Understand the reporting infrastructure and create custom Excel reports
Configure Data warehouse and OLAP cube refresh and rebuilds
Plan, install, and manage the new build environments
Optimise build infrastructure to provide fast feedback to teams
Configure a release management environment
Manage configuration values in release management

ALMA18: TFS 2018 Configuration and Administration