Chapter 5: Team Foundation Server Backup and Recovery

Overview

Disasters strike when you least expect them. You need to be prepared for any emergency from a hurricane blowing away your datacenter to all the hard drives in your database server failing at the same time. Being prepared can mean the difference between having your organization up and running in 48 hours, versus priming your resume to look for a new job.

However, you can't just run off willy-nilly, set up a quick database backup job, and think that you are ready for any disaster. There is more to it than that. You need a plan, a written guideline for people to follow in case of an emergency. Moreover, you need to test that plan, constantly. Because if you don't test it and it fails, well, you may find yourself with a new interest in the job market.

This chapter covers the basics of disaster recovery. Whole books can be written on the subject, so we cover the basics here and we direct you to resources where you can learn more. Learning about disaster recovery in general before delving into Team Foundation Server specifics will help you to think about and create your own specific disaster recovery plan for your installation of Team Foundation Server. We briefly cover different backup tools, and then disaster recovery as it applies to Team Foundation Server. You also get an overview of SQL Server 2005 recovery modes, which play an integral part in determining your backup strategy for Team Foundation Server, and SQL Server in general.

Finally, in the remainder of the chapter, you learn step-by-step how to back up and restore Team Foundation Server to the same server or to a new machine.