Halbert wrote:
> I see there is an option in Dreamweaver to sync to a VSS database.

Cool. That simplifies things.  You'll still need someone knowlegable to set 
up the repository. (Said person might be you of course, but it's not nearly 
as straightforward as using it.)

> I wonder 
> what means you use to sync the VSS database with the development webserver 
> and the two load-balanced production webservers.

VSS comes with a client software that just presents a window with the server 
side and the client side, I think.

Basically, you check out the code onto the server the same way you do on the 
development machines. When you want to deploy, you just refresh the checked 
out version. You may need to rearrange some things to make this easy, but I 
find it works well because it gives you the option to go "crap! Production 
doesn't work with the version that's fine on development!" and get back to 
where you were within a short time.

If you have a SQL database, things are uglier of course, since you have to 
synchronize schema changes and stuff. I can advise on that if the mechanisms 
aren't obvious too, but it's a fairly tedious process no matter how you work it.

> The business about syncing 
> the two production servers is always something that has bothered me too 
> because we have been doing it manually. Every once in a while a revision 
> will be made and one of the servers will fail to be updated making one of 
> the two servers have an out of date copy (or no copy.)

Yep. VSS will tell you what version is on the servers, if you log into them 
and query it.

Given that both Visual Studio and Dreamweaver support VSS, I'd suggest you 
find someone locally who can spend you an hour setting it up and teaching 
you how to use it.  It's conceptually pretty straightforward.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Why is there a chainsaw in DOOM?
   There aren't any trees on Mars.

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