Build BizTalk Solutions with Visual Studio Online

The Visual Studio Online Hosted Build Controller is perfect when you are building “standard” .NET solutions. A list of the installed components on the Hosted Build Controller can be found here. It is clear that it is not possible to build BizTalk Solutions.

In order to use Visual Studio Online to build your BizTalk solutions, you will have to set up a build controller yourself. This can be done on-premise or as a VM in Azure as described here.

In this blog post I will demonstrate how to configure a BizTalk Server 2013 Developer Image in Azure VM as a Build Controller, connected with Visual Studio Online.

1) Create a new VM in Azure

Do you have an MSDN subscription? Then the most logical choices is to create a new VM based on the BizTalk Server 2013 Developer Image from the gallery:

To configure this VM, I’ll advice you to have a look at the blog post Bill Chesnut made: Configuring BizTalk Server 2013 Developer Azure Gallery Image. His post is very profound!

2) Setup TFS 2013

Once your VM is up and running, you can proceed to the installation of TFS on the VM. Download the TFS 2013 Update 2 ISO from MSDN and install it.

After installation, the ‘Team Foundation Server Configuration Center’ will start:

Start the “Configure Team Foundation Build Service” wizard to proceed and connect to your Visual Studio Online account:

Select your Team Project Collection:

Next, configure the Build Services:

Next, configure the Team Foundation Build Service user accounts:

Confirm and verify:

Success!

3) Edit Build Definition

The last step is to select our newly made Build controller instead of the Hosted Build controller of Visual Studio Online:

Now you are ready to go and able to schedule a new build of your BizTalk Solution that will be build on your Build controller in the Azure VM.