Installattion and configuration of TFS2012

Team Foundation Server (TFS) is popular application lifecycle management (ALM) system. It includes such services as source control, build service, reporting service etc. 

TFS is pretty flexible system, you can add services you need (for instance, alarms, custom work item's controls and chek-in policies). By adding custom components you will enlarge functionality as you need.
Let's have a look how to start using TFS.

Installation

Just follow this link, press "+" near the label "Team Foundation Server"  and download trial version of TFS2012.
Before to start installation make sure you have MS SQL Server 2008 R2 or higher installed on your machine. If needed version is not installed, install new instance (or update the old one).
Installation is very simple. You have to go through several windows and choose some options.They are all very intuitive.

Configuration

Right after the end of installation process you get the window of Team Foundation Server Administartion Console opened:

Most intersting setting in this window is Notification URL. This is addres that you are going to use for connect this TFS server from Visual Studio.

You can change Notification URL and Server URL by pressing the link Change Urls. For instance, you may need to change these settings when the port of tfs application on IIS was changed.

There is one project collection in TFS server by default. It's called DefaultCollection and it's impossible to rename it. You can only add description for this collection (available by click on Edit Settings link).

 By clicking Create Collection link you can create a new collection. Or attach existing collection using existing database (seems like before it should be detached from previous TFS server).

If you would like to be able to build your projects on TFS automaticaly then you need to configure Build Configuration feature. When you open this tab right after installation you see that this feature is already installed.

1. Click Configure Installed Features link here
2. Push Start Wizard button in the window that appears
3. Push Next button in the Welcome window (there are no fields to complete there).
4. Choose TFS collection to configure Build service for (leave it unchanged if you didn't create or attach new collections):

5. Choose the number of build agents for your build controller (that is machine where we configure our build service). I chose recomended count of agents per controller - one (by default):

6. Choose account for build service. Under this account your builds will be run in feature. If you have a domain, it would be good to have several account in there and use this account for such purpose.

7. Push Next button in Review window
8. Puch Configure button in Readiness Checks window (after checks have been performed)

9. Push next button in Configure button after configuration passed
10. Congratulations! Build service has been configured. Push Close button in Complete window and Close button in Wizard window to close wizard.

Basic TFS configuration is done and TFS is ready for use.
Next article is going to be about how to add project to TFS, do basic actions (check-in, check-out) and use command line interface.