Understanding Deployment Concepts
To effectively choose a deployment of Team Foundation Server that best meets your business needs, you must understand its underlying architecture. The architecture of your specific deployment affects every task that you perform in Team Foundation Server. This includes backing up data, providing basic access to users, and managing functionality. Moreover, you can better manage configuration changes if you understand how the specific configuration choices of a deployment work in the architecture.
Team Foundation Server Components
Team Foundation Server has three logical tiers: the Team Foundation application tier, the Team Foundation data tier, and the Team Foundation client tier. For more information about these logical tiers and how they interact, see Team Foundation Server Components and Securing Team Foundation Server.
Trusts Between Team Foundation Server Components
Team Foundation Server requires specific trust relationships between the computers that host its logical tiers. For more information about Team Foundation Server and Active Directory domains, see Managing Team Foundation Server in an Active Directory Domain. For more information about Team Foundation Server in workgroups, see Managing Team Foundation Server in a Workgroup.
Team Foundation Server Service Accounts
Depending on your deployment configuration, Team Foundation Server requires at least two service accounts in order to operate correctly. You can choose to use the same physical account for all of the service accounts. The service accounts must belong to the Service Accounts group in Team Foundation Server. Each service account must belong to a workgroup or domain that is trusted by every computer that will connect to the server that is running Team Foundation Server. For more information, see Managing Team Foundation Server Services and Service Accounts.
Team Foundation Server Groups and Permissions
By default, Team Foundation Server has default groups at both the server level and at the project level. Each of these default groups have a specific set of permissions assigned to them when they are created. You can choose to add users to these default groups and accept the default permissions, or you can choose to customize groups and permissions to better meet your business needs. For more information, see Managing Users and Groups and Managing Permissions.
Groups and Permissions in Team Foundation Server Dependencies
When you add a user or group to Team Foundation Server, that user or group is not automatically added to two components on which Team Foundation Server depends: Windows SharePoint Services and SQL Server Reporting Services. You must add users and groups to those programs and grant the appropriate permissions before those users or groups will function correctly across all Team Foundation Server operations. For more information, see Windows SharePoint Services Roles and SQL Server Reporting Services Roles.
Team Foundation Server Configuration Information
Team Foundation Server depends on SQL Server, SQL Server Reporting Services, Internet Information Services (IIS), the Windows operating system, and Windows SharePoint Services. As a result, configuration information for Team Foundation Server is stored in five locations. For more information, see Team Foundation Server Security Architecture.
See Also
Concepts
Team Foundation Server Planning Roadmap
Backing Up the Team Foundation Server