Monitoring build resources with the TFS 2017 management pack

This post announces that the TFS 2017 management pack no longer supports monitoring of build resources (XAML controllers/agents, Build/Release agents). It details the historical approaches to build resource monitoring within TFS management packs and explains the decision to abandon this in TFS 2017 due to complexity and the availability of equivalent monitoring in System Center. The post provides a recommended approach for monitoring build resources using System Center's built-in capabilities: monitoring machine availability, creating Windows Service monitors for XAML build resources (e.g., TFSBuildServiceHost.2013), and creating process monitors for Build/Release resources (e.g., Agent.Listener.exe) with specific machine groups. This new approach allows for monitoring interactive agents, Linux agents, and setting custom thresholds for CPU/memory consumption.