Application areas and resource dependencies

Azure DevOps Server 2022 | Azure DevOps Server 2020 | Azure DevOps Server 2019

You configure and manage Azure DevOps Server and additional resources to support your teams. These resources include the application-tier and data-tier server(s), project collections which host projects, and optional resources.

Optional resources can include report servers, build servers, and more. For information on Azure DevOps Server components and architecture, see Architecture overview.

Important

You should not manually modify any Azure DevOps databases unless you're either instructed to do so by Microsoft Support or when you're following the procedures described for manually backing up the databases. Any other modifications can invalidate your service agreement.

Add or remove resources

You can add or remove resources to your deployment to better meet the changing needs of your business and your software projects. You can add or remove reporting at any time. You can also use more than one instance of SQL Server to host the databases for your deployment. For example, you can add a server that is running SQL Server Reporting Services to your deployment after you install and initially configure Azure DevOps.

Core service functions

When you create a project, you automatically gain access to the following functions:

• Web portal - provides a web interface to Azure DevOps Server that grants access to projects, Agile planning and tracking tools, version control, and builds. For an overview, see Web portal navigation.

• Source control repository - uses Git repositories or Team Foundation Version Control.

• Azure Boards - teams can create work items and work item queries to track, monitor, and report on the development of a product and its features. A work item is a database record that stores the definition, assignment, priority, and state of work. Your team can create only those types of work items that are defined in the process template (used to create the project), or types that are added to the project after it is created.

  Team members can work in the web portal or Team Explorer. To learn more about these and other clients that connect to Azure DevOps Server, see Which tools and clients connect to Azure DevOps Server.

Required resources to support additional services

The following table indicates any additional servers and functionality that you must configure for your team to have access to the corresponding feature. You can add resources before or after you have created your project.

Feature area	Required resources	Related topics
Builds	Team Foundation Build	Configure and manage your build system The Builds page lists the build definitions defined for your project. This page appears only when Team Foundation Build is installed and configured. Team Foundation Build enables your team to create and manage product builds. For example, a team can run daily builds and post them to a shared server. Team Foundation Build also supports build reports about the status and quality of each build. Access to the Team Foundation Build Service requires that the project collection has been configured to use a build controller. Each build controller is dedicated to a single project collection. The controller accepts build requests from any project in its collection. See Build the application.
Reports	SQL Server Analysis Services SQL Server Reporting Services	Add reports to a project The Report page appears only when the project collection that hosts your project has been configured with both SQL Server Reporting Services and SQL Server Analysis Services. This page provides access to Report Manager and the default and custom reports that you upload to the server that hosts SQL Server Reporting Services. For an overview of the default reports, see Reporting Services reports.
Remote-site	Team Foundation	Install Azure DevOps Proxy Server and set up a remote site Configure Visual Studio to connect to Azure DevOps Proxy Server If some team members are located remotely from the main location for version control, you may want to install and configure Azure DevOps Proxy Server to support them. Azure DevOps Proxy Server manages a cache of downloaded version control files in the location of the distributed team, which significantly reduces the bandwidth needed for distant connections. If clients are configured to use Azure DevOps Proxy Server, management of the files is transparent to the user. Any metadata exchange and file uploads continue to interface directly with Azure DevOps Server. See Connect to projects in Azure DevOps Server.