KB : Setup a VPS instance for TFS4JIRA Synchronizer (Google Compute Engine)

Since TFS4JIRA version 6.1 has been released, users could choose to deploy TFS4JIRA Synchronizer as an Azure Web App. However, TFS4JIRA Synchronizer can actually be installed on a regular Windows Server VPS as well so you would not have to worry about the infrastructure and spend extra cost in maintaining a physical machine. In this article, we are going to show you how to setup a Windows OS VPS instance on Google Cloud for installing the Synchronizer to perform synchronization between TFS and Jira.

Steps of creating a VPS instance that fits the environment of TFS4JIRA Synchronizer

1. Login to your Google Console and create a project for this VPS.

2. Go to this project you have just created, and then open the menu at the top left corner. Click "VM instances" under "Compute Engine"

3. Creat a VM instance

4. Change the boot disk to Windows Server

   
   TFS4JIRA Synchronizer can be installed on either Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows Server 2012 or Windows Server 2016. However, we do suggest to install the latest one with better support from Microsoft.
   
   
   

5. Check allow HTTP and HTTPS traffic

   This would affect the firewall rule for ingress communication only in Google Cloud, we will have to setup the firewall rule for egress later on at Google Cloud console.
   
   

6. Click "Create" to create the VM instance

7. Afterwards, you will have to setup the firewall rules for egress

   

   Both Egress and Ingress should be allowed for http and https (depending on your JIRA and TFS instance)
   
   

8. Now you will need to setup the Windows user account in order to perform remote control of the OS and install the Synchronizer.

   

9. The Windows VPS instance is ready for installing TFS4JIRA Synchronizer