On Premises TFS to VSTS migration of XAML builds

Question

Currently we are using TFS 2017 update 1 on premises but we have to Migrate TFS at VSTS cloud platform. Also we TFS Build Servers on premises having XAML builds using customized build template. Our problem is after migration all XAML build definition would working as usual or not?

Currently we are using TFS 2017 update 1 on premises but we have to Migrate TFS at VSTS cloud platform. Also we TFS Build Servers on premises having XAML builds using customized build template. Our problem is after migration all XAML build definition would working as usual or not?

there is no code. Do we need to Re-configure all build server again? After migration on VSTS can we configure All build servers on premises as well using old all XAML build definitions or not?

Please suggest on this.

Answer 1

XAML builds are no longer available in VSTS, so they will not work at all after a migration.

The good news is that TFS 2017 supports build vNext so you can convert your builds before you migrate to make sure you can still build after the migration.

Build vNext (Azure DevOps Pipelines) are much more flexible and easier to set up and customise than the old XAML builds. However if you have a lot of customised builds then it might take a while to convert them all.

One big advantage of the new build system is that the same build can be used across multiple branches, which might mean that you don't need to put as much effort in to converting builds as in the XAML system you needed a build per branch.

My suggestion is that you begin by familiarise yourself with the new build system and start to convert the builds before you migrate, then you can import you TFS database in to VSTS.

Answer 2

XAML builds are still supported with Azure DevOps (with some limitations), see official response from Microsoft:

XAML build is still here until now. Current state :

If you have any XAML build data in your team project collection, you will get a warning about the deprecation of XAML build features. You will need to use VS or Team Explorer 2017 to edit XAML build definitions or to queue new XAML builds. If you need to create new XAML build agents, you will need to install them using the TFS 2015 build agent installer. Please refer to official document -XAML builds: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/releasenotes/tfs2018-update2#xaml-builds

And we will keep it longer, how long does it can be used depend on user feedbacks.

Installing TFS2015 Update 4.1 locally allows you to configure Build Server, Service and Agents that are connected to Azure DevOps, and run all your XAML builds from either Azure DevOps or Visual Studio.