Hey,BigChris,

met the same problem during development processes.

Using the whole sql export and import method a lot plus SVN.

But its actaully hard to sync and time consuming..

Still waiting for efficient way to sync data crossing dev & Live.

Alex

I wouldn't sync the live database with the dev database (you might encounter the PHP hash bug then: http://open.silverstripe.org/ticket/3004 ). Imho, it's sufficient to develop on the dev server with test data. If everything works fine on the dev system, you can make a dump of the live db, upload the files and rebuild the database.

At work we use Beanstalk (http://beanstalkapp.com/) as a hosted SVN repo. This has the benefit of having 'deployment' settings, that will sync your source code with up to 3 different servers (via ftp or sshftp). It also syncs anything linked via svn:externals too (as long as the externals is in the same Beanstalk account, or a publicly readable repo).

In terms of the database, I generally try to steer clear of syncing dev with live. The development cycle tends to leave the database either a little bloated, or sometimes, just not very optimized (as you change settings and try to tweak stuff). I tend to prefer starting with a fresh database build when I push a site over to a live server. And using test data on my local development environment.

Hope that is of some help.

Mo

@justinv - correct if you're using svn externals for the sapphire/ cms/ and your other modules. You wouldn't want to copy these folders to your repo (unless you are making changes). Using externals for ss related code will also make your life easier in terms of updating the library.