Upgrade vs. Migration: Upgrading to a Newer Version of TFS

  • Article

This is the second blog post in a series about Upgrade and Migration for TFS.

One of the most common statements I hear from customers looking at migration is similar to the following:

“I have a TFS 2005/2008 server and I want to migrate to TFS 2010”

This is not a migration scenario, but rather an upgrade scenario.  Any scenario in which the primary objective is to move from one version of TFS to another newer version is an upgrade.  In any situation where an upgrade to a newer version is to be performed, the recommended approach is to follow the MSDN documentation for Upgrading Team Foundation Server and to use the Team Foundation Installation Guide (2008 version, 2010 version).

Using the supported upgrade process that is given in the TFS documentation is recommended for multiple reasons.  First, it guarantees that all of the data and metadata stored in TFS is properly transformed for use in the new version.  The upgrade process is also highly tested in numerous configurations of hardware and software versions.  Finally, because the upgrade process is part of the released product, any issues encountered during upgrade are fully supported by customer support.

Additional Resources

MSDN Upgrade Documentation - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms404851.aspx

TFS 2010 Installation Guide - https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=2d531219-2c39-4c69-88ef-f5ae6ac18c9f

TFS 2008 Installation Guide - https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=FF12844F-398C-4FE9-8B0D-9E84181D9923&displaylang=en

Comments

  • Anonymous
    February 16, 2010
    Hi Matt. Thank you for some great posts - I have a question though :) My company has a TFS2008 setup where we use a modified Conchango "Scrum for team system" template - different projects have different modifications to the template. How will that affect an upgrade? Will it fail - or will the templates work on the upgraded TFS, with the limitations of not having some of the new great 2010 features?