How to: Activate a Fail-Over Application-Tier Server
If the Team Foundation system includes a warm standby for the application-tier services, you can take the primary server for the application tier offline for maintenance or to restore services quickly if a failure were to occur.
The following procedures assume that you have a working application tier acting as the primary, a standby application-tier server configured, and that the DNS Server has the Host(A) records for the following three servers.
**Primary **The computer name of the primary application-tier server that has a static IP Address. For example, you might name the primary server TFS_AT_01.
Standby The computer name of the standby application-tier server that has a static IP Address. For example, you might name the standby server TFS_AT_02.
Virtual server The virtual server name for the application tier with the static IP Address that is the same as the IP Address the primary computer. For example, you might use the name TFS_AT for the virtual server name.
For more information, see the topic "Checklist: Standby Application-Tier Configuration" in the Team Foundation Server Installation Guide.
After a failure, the IP Address for the virtual server name must be updated manually to match the standby application-tier server.
Required Permissions
To perform this procedure, you must be a member of the Administrators security group on both the standby and primary Team Foundation application-tier server and a member of the Team Foundation Administrators security group. For more information, see Team Foundation Server Permissions.
In addition to these permissions, you might need to address the following requirements on a computer that is running Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista:
To follow a command-line procedure, you might need to open an elevated Command Prompt by clicking Start, right-clicking Command Prompt, and clicking Run as Administrator.
To follow a procedure that requires Internet Explorer, you might need to start it as an administrator by clicking Start, clicking All Programs, right-clicking Internet Explorer, and then clicking Run as administrator.
To edit web.config files, you might need to start the text editor as an administrator by clicking Start, clicking All Programs, right-clicking the editor, and then clicking Run as administrator.
To access Report Manager, reports, or Web sites for SQL Server Reporting Services, you might need to add these sites to the list of trusted sites in Internet Explorer or start Internet Explorer as an administrator.
For more information, see the Microsoft Web site.
To activate the failover application tier
Verify that the standby server has matching software upgrades as the primary server.
Note
As the administrator, you should keep the configurations for both computers current to make sure that they are ready to provide identical services to the clients after fail-over.
Use the Status command of TFSAdminUtil command-line utility to verify that the fail-over server has the same service account passwords and permissions as the primary.
Ask the Domain Administrator to change the IP Address for the virtual server to match the IP address used by standby.
For example, the following table summarizes the changes you can verify after the request is fulfilled.
Server
IP Address Before Request
IP Address After Request
Primary computer
For example, TFS_AT_01
<IP Address 1>
10.000.88.01
<IP Address 1>
10.000.88.01
Standby computer
For example, TFS_AT_02
<IP Address 2>
10.000.00.02
<IP Address 2>
10.000.88.02
Virtual server
For example, TFS_AT
Same as primary
10.000.00.01
Same as standby
10.000.00.02
Log on to the standby server and run the ActivateAT command of the TFSAdminUtil command-line utility available in the Tools directory.
For example,
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server\Tools>TfsAdminUtil ActivateAt <virtual server name>
The utility detects the IP Address change and then restarts the Internet Information Services to make sure that the services have the current registration data.
For the warning that the data-tier server you provided is being used, type Y to continue.
Restoring Reporting Services
The following procedure describes how to connect to the data tier by using the Reporting Services Configuration tool and how to restore the encryption key by using the command-line tool. You can also restore the encryption key by using the Reporting Services Configuration tool.
To restore Reporting Services
On the standby application-tier computer, click Start, point to All Programs, point to Microsoft SQL Server 2005, point to Configuration Tools, and then click Report Services Configuration.
Click Database Setup, and then click New.
The SQL Server Connection dialog box opens.
In Server Name, type the server name or named instance of the data tier.
In the Credentials Type list, click Current User - Integrated Security, and then click OK.
Click Connect, and then click OK.
On the standby application-tier computer, open a Command Prompt window, and locate the RSKEYMGMT tool.
Note
Even if you are logged on with administrative credentials, you must open an elevated Command Prompt to perform this function on a server that is running Windows Server 2008. To open an elevated Command Prompt, click Start, right-click Command Prompt, and click Run as Administrator. For more information, see the Microsoft Web site.
By default, the tool is located in the binn directory. You can use the following command to change to the binn directory.
cd %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\binn
Use the -l option of RSKEYMGMT tool to list the active servers in the report server database.
RSKEYMGMT –l
The results for the services on an application tier named TFS_AT01 look similar to the following text.
TFS_AT_01\MSSQLSERVER - 4a537168-75e0-46a2-acfe-813007d03d4c
Note the installation GUID for the primary application-tier computer, and use the -r option of the RSKEYMGMT tool to remove the instance from the database. For example, the following command is based on the results in step 2.
RSKEYMGMT –r 4a537168-75e0-46a2-acfe-813007d03d4c
Locate the installation GUID for the standby application tier, and use the -a option of the RSKEYMGMT tool to add the standby to the database, restore a back-up copy of the encryption key for the report server, and activate this instance.
For example, the following command restores Reporting Services by using
RSKEYMGMT –a –i <instance ID for AT2> -f c:\backups\My_RSBackup_TFS_AT01 -p aPassword
In Internet Explorer, verify that Reporting Services is online by locating the reports site on the virtual server for the application tier.
Note
For example, the URL for Reporting Services on the virtual server for the application tier would be http://TFS_AT/reports.
See Also
Tasks
Troubleshooting Team Foundation Server Fail-Over
How to: Verify Team Foundation Server Fail-Over (services)
Concepts
Activating a Fail-Over Application-Tier Server