What hardware do I need to run TFS? Well, it depends on how much load you are going to generate. But what is a solid hardware configuration to start?
Microsoft recommends for the Single-Server installation of TFS:
Additionally they recommend switching to a Dual-Server configuration (TFS & MSSQL installed on separate machines) if you have more than 450 users (Note: this is really just a rough orientation – many other factors are important).
We recommend the following minimum based on our experiences
(recommendations for better performance in brackets):
# Developers | Configuration | CPU | RAM* | HDD** |
<= 20 | single server | 2 x 2.2 GHz | 2.5 GB (3 GB) | 80 GB |
<= 100 | single server | 4 x 2.2 GHz | 3 GB (4 GB) | 250 GB |
> 100*** | dual server | 2 x 2.6 / 4 x 2.2 GHz | 4 / 8 GB (16 GB) | 500 GB |
Disclaimer: All values shown here do vary depending on the individual situation.
A few general notes
* Increasing the amount of memory (RAM) clearly improves performance (be aware TFS Application Tier is 32-bit only and hence limited to ~ 3.5 GB)
** Hard drive speed is very important to MSSQL and therefore for TFS. The use of fast hard drives and disk arrays is heavily recommended.
*** Splitting TFS and MSSQL is a good idea if you experience heavy load and slow response times on a single server installation. [More]
However more than just the number of developers should be considered in this case, e.g. licensing issues, existing SQL infrastructure, backups in place, etc.A reliable network connection with a minimum bandwidth of 1 Mbps and a latency maximum of 350ms is required.
The use of virtualization technologies (Virtual Server, Hyper-V, VMware) is possible and mostly recommended by us for backup and fail-over reasons.
More official Hardware Recommendations (our recommendation in brackets):
- Team Build (2 x 2.2 GhZ CPU, 2 GB RAM, 80 GB Hard disk)
- Team Foundation Server Proxy (2 x 2.2 GHz CPU, 2 GB RAM, 80 GB Hard disk)
- Team Explorer (2.2 GHz CPU, 1 GB RAM, 30 GB Hard disk)
- Test Rigs
hi
I would like to know that if i install the TFS 2010 on a VMWARE ESXI 4.0 Server with the following config
windows 2008 server ,8 Gb ram , 1 500 GB of HDD for
120 to 130 users .
Will the above configuration work or should i use the same config on a seperate Physical server .
Is it recommended to install the TFS 2010 on the Virtual server or physical machine is preffered.
Thanks
Joston
jbar@infinite-ind.com
Joston: You can install TFS in a virtual environment and in fact I do recommend it.
Hi,
Thanks for all this useful information.
I wanted to know if there are any guidelines on the network connection between a TFS proxy and TFS server.
We’re planning to install a proxy with overnight sync of all files to keep them relatively fresh on the proxy to minimise the need to download files during working hours but I couldn’t find any information about the bandwidth required for other aspects of TFS that aren’t handled by the proxy such as:
– Authentication
– Work Items
– File downloads
Thanks for your help
Oran