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I cloned our current TFS 2012 server so that I could test an upgrade to TFS 2015. I kept the VM offline while upgrading the pre-requisites and also renamed it so there wouldn't be any DNS issues with the existing server, which is still live.

I was hoping to do the upgrade while offline but it cannot proceed without communicating with the DC's. Therefore, I would like to know if there's any risk in putting the VM online during the upgrade, considering there is an existing TFS installation in the same AD domain. Will it try making any changes in AD, for example, which would try pointing clients to the new environment?

Thank you for your input.

blizz
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2 Answers2

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One risk I can think of is that your computers may decide to change their password during testing. Each computer would be using the same account name and password initially, but if the password expires while you're testing (by default every 30 days), one or the other will succeed in changing it, and the other one would lose its association with the domain. You should be able to rename the cloned VM and use SysPrep to generate a new SID for it. Not sure how that rename would affect TFS, however.

Thinking about it, though, is there a reason you couldn't snapshot the VM, do the upgrade, perform your tests, and if all succeeded, delete the snapshot?

DarkMoon
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  • I'm not too concerned about the password scenario. The reason, unfortunately, is that the TFS is on a physical machine and I snapshotted that in order to create the test VM... – blizz Sep 12 '16 at 04:18
  • Hmm, then second option might be to clone the DC as well, and put them on an isolated (internal) VLAN, and perform the upgrade. Depending on how you test after the upgrade, you may need to also clone a client PC to that VLAN as well, so it can connect and test. – DarkMoon Sep 12 '16 at 05:23
  • I'm not sure what this has to do with Craig a clone of TFS. You cant sysprep a TFS server, and cloning you dc as well does not sound anything like the documented procedures provided by the vendor. Perhaps it would be better to read them first before replying! – MrHinsh - Martin Hinshelwood Sep 25 '16 at 12:45
  • A full lab is usually not a documented procedure by the vendor, but it's wise to have if you don't want to smash production to bits with experiments. Use a full lab. Clone your DC, and anything else that is relevant. Don't test in production. – Spooler Sep 25 '16 at 12:51
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There is no risk to cloning your TFS servers as long as you follow the documented procedures. You need to make sure that you call "tfconfig changeserverid" on the clone before you complete the TFS install.

  1. Build new VM for TFS and install TFS 2015.3 (or same as production)
  2. Restore all TFS data base (config + collections + warehouse)
  3. Call ChangeServerID on clone
  4. Run the "configure new apptier" wizard

Done...

MrHinsh - Martin Hinshelwood
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