Question

We have Tfs as single server installation with several TeamCollections. If i configure the build i have to assign 1 BuildController (only one is allowed!) to one TeamProjectCollection.

It’s possible (and how) to have more than one BuildControler, because we need several BuildConrtoller – one for each TeamProjectCollection.

Is the only solution to have a own BuildServer for each TeamProjectCollection!?

Answer 1

I’m going to make some assumptions about your environment, if you update the question then I’ll update my answer. Also some information about the size of your team would be helpful

Assumption number 1: you have a single server which is acting as your TFS application server and as a build controller and build agent.

Assumption number 2: this single server has 4 processor cores.

If that’s the case I would suggest that you get at least 1 other machine to act as the controller / agent (it can be a VM). Firstly for performance and secondly for security. The build service runs as administrator and if someone creates a build that formats a drive or deletes the registry then you’ve just lost your TFS server!

A build controller can only be associated with 1 Team Project Collection. You can have as many controllers / build agents as you want associated with a collection but they cannot be shared across collections.

You can have as many build agents as you have cores so a 4 core machine can host up to 4 build agents (you should see this option when you install team build on the server) Of course this will have an impact on performance as each controller will be sharing the same RAM and Disk.

You can also set up multiple build controllers on the same machine, but this isn’t supported by Microsoft and is considered a hack. Jim Lamb blogged about this and Mark Nichols wrote a nice guide

So to summarise. If you’re using a single 4 core server you could potentially host up to 4 build agents, and using the hack a similar number of controllers. This might suit your needs. It’s a bit of a hack but it should solve your problem.

The correct (but more expensive) way to do this is to have a VM for each controller and then separate machines for the build agents themselves. For example, we have 2 Team Project Collections. 2 VM’s for build controllers (one per collection) these machines don’t need to be that powerful as the controller doesn’t do much work. We have 16 quad core machines for the build agents themselves. At the moment we only host 2 agents per machine so in effect each Controller / Team Project Collection has 16 build agents. Although we do occasionally move the agents between Controllers if there is a need.