Deploying Custom Web Service to handle Work Item Changed Notification

Question

Hello all,

We've created a custom integration web service that subscribes to the Notify event from the Work Item Changed notification.  The web service performs multiple actions to TFS and with our internal application.  We deployed the service to a 64-bit server with our internal application (i.e. not to the TFS web service).  The web service runs in an App Pool with the TeamFoundation assemblies deployed alongside it (which forced us to check the Enable 32 bit applications setting).

The server processor spikes ~20 hours after running the app pool with the Team Foundation assemblies deployed alongside it.

When deploying a web service subscribing to the Work item Changed event, does it have to be on the TFS server?  Does it need to be installed on a server that has the TFS client (i.e. Team Explorer) on it?  Or can it be installed on a server that doesn't have the client or server on it?  I'm trying to avoid installing Visual Studio on a production server, even if it is just the Team Explorer.

Any insight is appreciated as I'm not able to find much guidance on deploying a custom TFS web service.

Thanks!

Answer 1

The TFS Object Model is not supported on a system without Team Foundation Server or Team Explorer/Foundation Client installed.It might work without them, but it is not a supported scenario.

Also from a licensing perspective, you're not allowed to run install or distribute your webservice without pre-installing Team Explorer.

I'm unsure why you need to set your app pool to 32-bit. As far as I know most of these assemblies are set to AnyCPU. http://go4answers.webhost4life.com/Example/64-bit-tfs-2010-ons-11858.aspx

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My blog: blog.jessehouwing.nl

Answer 2

Hi Jesse,

Thanks for the quick reply.  Even after installing the Team Explorer client, the web service still would only operate if the app pool allowed for 32-bit operation.  Should I just be able to reference the TFS object model assemblies, build, and deploy to any server with the client?  I'm trying to see if there's a special step that I'm missing.

Answer 3

Is the webservice project you're using built in AnyCPU or x86? If it's x86, try changing it to AnyCPU, the TFS object model should just work.

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My blog: blog.jessehouwing.nl