TFS 2015.4 consolidation path

Question

I have 2 different tfs servers, on different machines. Both of them is not in any domain. Each of them has their own project collections and team projects.

What I wanna do is merge them on a new server. What I believe this is called consolidation.

I have been researching for this job, but documents I have found were a little uncomprehensive for me. But I planned a path afterall. Lets say I have servers A, B, and C. A and B are the old ones, and C will be the new one.

Server A: 2015.4

1. take full backup of the db via TFS administration console, to \\backups\tfsA

Server B: 2015.4

1. take full backup of the db via TFS administration console, to \\backups\tfsB

Server C:

1. install the TFS 2015.4 - do not configure

2. restore database via TFS administration console, from \\backups\tfsA

3. restore database via TFS administration console, from \\backups\tfsB

4. configure TFS

My question here is

• "Would this path actually work?", restoration from 2 different paths seems a little scary to me, but can't be sure. Or;

• Should I have the db backups on the same path like \\backups\tfsAB and run restore from that path?

After this process is completed, I need to make an environment migration too and have this new tfs work with an Active Directory, but that should be another question after I make this work I guess.

Answer 1

You cannot merge the two servers directly as you mention, as some of the configuration would be in the database for each server.

What you can do is move one Team Project Collection at a time, by detaching it from the old server (will copy needed configuration from the common configuration database into the collection database), make a backup of that particular Team Project Collection database, restore it on the new server and finally attaching it (will copy configuration back to the common configuration database).

You do need to think of the naming as the Team Project Collection needs to have a unique name on the new merged server. Renaming is done by changing the name upon restore.

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