In this blog we will see how and why to Azure DevOps Server (earlier named as TFS) data backup. I will be using Azure DevOps Server or TFS word interchangeably. We should backup the data of our Azure DevOps Server deployment in order to avoid loss of data, productivity loss, un-availability of Server due to unexpected events, Server crashes or patch failures etc. So, to reduce the risk of losing data & productivity, we should regularly take the backup and validate the restored data.

We need to back-up following databases of Azure DevOps Server:

• Configuration database
• Project collection databases (all the Team Project Collection’s databases)
• Warehouse database
• Reporting databases

We can use the Scheduled Backups options in Administrator console of Azure DevOps Server. We should have an admin permission in TFS and also in SQL server where the data is stored. Copy the backup to a shared path which is accessible. Define the Retention days for back-up, based on the size of the data and availability of the hardware.

Select the backup schedule, for example Nightly Build or Once a week or daily at a particular time. We can define the schedule and backup data retention, based on our business needs. Once it is configured the backup will happened accordingly

Regularly we should restore the backed-up data to a standby sever and validate the data integrity. We can use the restore tool option of TFS Admin Console.