TFS to Azure DevOps: 4-week Implementation

Migration in 3 Phases

Ever since Azure DevOps Services was released to provide a hosted SaaS service for development teams, Team Foundation Server customers have been asking Microsoft to be able to import their TFS databases to take advantage of all the great capabilities of AzureDevOps Services.

We are happy to say that the TFS Database Import Service for Azure DevOps Services is now available. Our 3 phase migration plan will walk through the different steps along the way. The goal of the migration is to move your team from on premises Team Foundation Server (TFS) to Azure DevOps Services in the cloud. After the migration, your team will be able to connect to Azure DevOps Services and keep working like usual with all of the data, permissions, and customizations from your TFS database.

Phase 1

The first stage is to gather the information needed to provide our ALM experts with a complete background of your current TFS environment. We will review which projects and branches you would like to migrate from your code repository, which work items need to be migrated and what builds will need to be reconfigured in the new Azure DevOps instance, this allows us to assess where we stand in terms of carrying out the migration.

Phase 2 * TFS Migration Dry Runs (generally 1 to 2 weeks)

Depending on your configuration, migrating your TFS environment may be straightforward or need some config changes. The migration may also need to have TFS version upgraded first before a migration may occur. After the environment is ready, the migration into Azure is carried out by performing many dry runs to expose any errors during the conversion from TFS to Azure DevOps and allow fixing of the issues. Once a successful migration occurs, we can move onto planning a full migration.

Phase 3 * Full Migration (1 week)

Based on studies from the dry * run, we will coordinate the scheduling of your full migration.