You configure and manage Team Foundation Server (TFS) and additional resources to support your teams. These resources include the application-tier and data-tier server(s), team project collections which host team projects, and optional resources such as report servers, SharePoint products, build servers, lab management, and more. For information on TFS components and architecture, see Team Foundation Server architecture.

Important
You should not manually modify any of the TFS databases unless you're either instructed to do so by Microsoft Support or when you're following the procedures described for manually backing up the databases. Any other modifications can invalidate your service agreement.

Through the Team Foundation Server Administration Console, you can manage and monitor your server configuration. Tasks you can accomplish through the administration console are indicated with this image: .

The administration console is installed by default on any server on which you install one or more of the following components: an application tier for TFS, TFS extensions for SharePoint Products, Team Foundation Build, and Visual Studio Lab Management

If all of your components are installed on a single server, the administration console provides management nodes for all components in your deployment. If, however, your deployment uses multiple servers, you must open the console on the server that is running the component that you want to manage.

To determine what updates have been installed, you can open the administration console for Team Foundation or view the version number of a particular file.

A: Get started by reviewing the following topics:

• If you administer a small team, you can add team members directly to a team. However, if you need to manage a large number of users with different levels of access, see Manage users or groups in TFS.

• You grant access to premium features─such as portfolio backlogs, team rooms, and test case management tools─provided through Team Web Access based on the license that each user has. See Change access levels.

• If a team member has problems connecting to TFS, review the following topics: Connect to team projects in Team Foundation Server and Configure features after a TFS upgrade.

• You can restrict access to a specific project, or limit access to particular resources.

• You, or members of the Project Collection Administrator or Project Administrator groups, manage many features of team projects and team project collections through the administrative context of Team Web Access.

• You can administer alerts that inform project members of changes in the team project.

• You can Customize work tracking objects to support your team's processes.

• Some upgrades require updating team projects as described in Configure features after a TFS upgrade.

A: You can't rename a team project. You can rename a collection by first detaching the collection, editing its settings, and then attaching the collection. See Manage team project collections.

A: TFS and the products it integrates with include several services and service accounts which run on some or all of the logical tiers and physical computers that compose a deployment. You can use the same account for all of these service accounts, or you can use different accounts. Your choice of account or accounts to use depends on the configuration of your deployment, your security needs, and what components you have installed. For clarity, each service account is referred to separately by using placeholder names.

To learn more, see Service accounts and dependencies in Team Foundation Server.

A: You can move TFS to a new server or add additional application-tier servers. You can also Move Team Foundation Server from one environment to another.

A: You can monitor TFS activity using the following tools:

• From the administration console Logs page, you can open a log file generated when configuring or servicing TFS.

• From the web administration page for the application-tier server, you can view activity logs and job monitoring charts.

  http://MyServer:8080/tfs/_oi/

  To learn more, see this blog post: New tools for TFS Administrators.

• From the Control Panel context of TWA, you can export an audit log of all users and their access levels. See Change access levels.

For additional monitoring tips, see this blog post: What does a well maintained Team Foundation Server look like?

A: Depending on how you initially installed and configured Visual Studio Team Foundation Server (TFS), you might need to manage it across one or multiple servers to maintain and operate your deployment. For example, the following illustration shows the logical architecture of a deployment of TFS that is integrated with both SQL Server Reporting Services and SharePoint Products:

In this example, you have to manage the configuration of the components, the users, the groups, and permissions across several servers. You must configure firewalls or other devices to allow network traffic on the ports that are required for communication between the servers. You have to make sure that all services that the deployment requires are running and configured to start automatically. Finally, you must make sure that the service account that TFS uses is fully trusted by every computer in the deployment. 

See also this blog post: What does a well maintained Team Foundation Server look like?

A: See one or more of the following topics:

• The installation guide includes details about these elements:

  • system requirements

  • SQL Server requirements

  • Active Directory requirements

  • SharePoint Products requirements

  • account requirements

  • language requirements

  • port requirements.

• You can also learn about requirements and infrastructure in these reference topics:

  • Team Foundation Server architecture

  • Naming restrictions in Team Foundation

  • Service accounts and dependencies in Team Foundation Server.

• For licensing information, read the licensing whitepaper.

A: Yes. As mentioned above, you should never manually modify TFS databases, because that can invalidate your service agreement, block upgrades and patches, and result in data loss or corruption. There are only two circumstances where you should ever consider modification:

• You are instructed to do so by Microsoft Support.

• Your deployment needs require you to manually back up your TFS databases. In that case, you should only modify the databases as described here.

A: The following resources and tools are available:

• You can post questions or search for answers in the MSDN forum: Team Foundation Server - Setup and Administration

• Team Foundation Server Blog

• Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2013 Power Tools includes the TFS Best Practices Analyzer, a Process Template editor, and additional tools.

• TFS CodePlex tools provides access to open source software that provide extended functionality to interface with TFS.