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I'm in the process of setting up a backup plan for a Team Foundation Server. I downloaded Power Tools for TFS and I'm using the Backup Plan Wizard that was included in that pack. I am now at the step where I'm supposed to decide how to schedule the backups and I have no idea what to choose for my setup.

I get what everything means, except Transactional Backup Interval. Screenshot of the Backup Plan Wizard for TFS, schedule choice

I would appreciate suggestions for a good schedule. What I would like to achieve is being able to restore and still look back a few versions, if possible. The minimum backup I would like to have is the latest version.

It might be important to add that I got to choose "Backup retention days" earlier and set that to 30.

granth
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Erik L
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  • You might get a better response on [serverfault.com](http://serverfault.com). – LukeH Jul 08 '11 at 13:16
  • Thanks for the tip, I did search that site before writing the question here though and I think I would've had a harder time getting a comprehensible answer there. – Erik L Jul 10 '11 at 08:11

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The transactional backup interval likely refers to how often transaction logs for your TFS databases are backed up. The schedule you choose will probably depend on how busy your repository is.

At my current client there are six developers, and we share some of the load for source control between VSS and TFS (we're transitioning). Corporate policy says we must backup transaction logs every hour during business hours, and an additional one at midnight. Our local backups are on a four-day retention cycle with off-site backups lasting years.

I would make a decision based on how much work you'd want to lose if your repository was lost and your working copy was destroyed simultaneously (natural disaster?).

Cᴏʀʏ
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  • Good answer, thanks. We're three developers, and so far there's only one web project in the TFS. Are transaction logs the ones who keep track of who checks out which file and such? – Erik L Jul 08 '11 at 13:49
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    A transaction log contains all of the transactions in the database that have occurred since the last time the transaction log was backed up. They're like diff files stacked up over time. If you wanted to roll back your database to a certain place in time, you could undo the transactions stored in the logs to that time. – Cᴏʀʏ Jul 08 '11 at 13:52
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    To better answer your question, a transaction log for TFS would contain transactions for any database activity -- check ins/outs, builds, security changes, policy changes, etc. If a TFS action is not 100% file-system related then it probably has a corresponding database record. – Cᴏʀʏ Jul 08 '11 at 13:56
  • Ah, that certainly answers my question! Thank you, now I just wish I could mark your comments as answers as well :) – Erik L Jul 10 '11 at 08:03