We recently upgraded Team Foundation Server to a new version.
I'm looking for information on how to best export all backlog items in bulk and import in similar fashion to the new server instance.
In other words, the old instance is alive and contains all our work items, but the new instance is blank and contains nothing.
Do you upgrade your old TFS to a new version or set up a new TFS?
Upgrade is a full data transfer, if you perform an upgrade, all data should shown as before. You need to go through article Upgrade your deployment to the latest version of TFS before doing upgrade. And follow the steps in article Upgrade scenario walkthrough for Team Foundation Server to upgrade your TFS. Summarize the steps here:
- Prepare your environment. The first step is to check the system requirements for TFS 2018. Upgrade SQL Server is necessary for your scenario. Including SQL Server, you also need to check other system requirements and prepare the environment.
- Expect the best, prepare for the worst. You must have a complete and consistent set of database backups in case something goes wrong.
- Do the upgrade. Once the preparation is done, you'll need to install the new version of TFS to get new binaries, and then run through the upgrade wizard to upgrade your databases.
- Configure new features. Depending on what version you upgraded from, you may need to configure each team project to gain access to some of the new features made available.
