What is the default number of build agents that can run on a build service when the build service is installed on its own dedicated server?

I am attending a competition where I am supposed to answer a couple of engineering and technical related questions. I hope that some of you guys could help me with this one.

I've already searched the web for a couple of hours, but I can't seem to make out the difference in the names used. I saw this article http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd793166.aspx on msdn, but I still can't make out the answer.

The question is:

In Team Fitting Solutions we use Team Foundation Server 2010 to manage and build our C# and C++ code. Team Foundation Server is able to build the code using a number of build agents and build services. What is the default number of build agents that can run on a build service when the build service is installed 开发者_运维知识库on its own dedicated server?

1. One build agent per build service
2. The default number of build agents is defined by the number of processor cores on the server hosting the build service
3. None, because a build agent cannot run on a server hosting the build service; it needs its own dedicated server

Thanks for the work.

It turns out that the correct answer was answer number 2. We found "If you installed Team Foundation Build Service on its own server, the default setting for Number of build agents to run on this build machine is equal to the number of processor cores on this server." at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee259683.aspx

And this was apparently the correct answer.

The number of processor cores is not coupled with the number of agents. It's MSBuild that takes the advantage of multi-core processors. So the right answer here is #1: The default number of agents is one.

Having multiple agents on one build machine will allow you to parallelize building different platform/configuration, or running more than one builds on a controller at a time, though.

According to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee259687.aspx it looks like the default number of build agents is one.

That is a weird question for them to be asking.

In the Hashimi/Bartholomew MSPress book "Using MSBuild and Team Foundation Build" the authors recommend NOT having Build Agents on the same machine as the Team Foundation Server. The reasons they give are:

• compilation is resource intensive and could degrade TFS performance
• build scripts and tests running on the TFS could compromise security, since these are usually written by non-admins
• build scripts and projects often require 3rd party software or libraries, and installing these on the TFS could likewise compromise security.

The only situation in which they say its OK is for demo or testing purposes where it isn't practical to have these on different machines or virtuals.