I don't think there are any best practices in regards to this, other than the idea of going from dev to staging to production. It somewhat depends on how much overlap there is among what the developers are working on.
The solutions would generally fall under the following categories: 1. localized dev code & localized dev DB 2. localized dev code & centralized dev DB 3. centralized dev code & centralized dev DB If there is little overlap among developers, then you can have all the developers work directly off a central development server using RDS, Remote Desktop, or VPN. However, due to speed issues, it may help if each developer was allowed to recreate the dev environment locally, work locally, and then sync back to the main dev site using source control software or some other method. Being forced to work on remote files can be painfully slow at times. For a dev database, you can do the same thing, although source control with a database can be a bit tricky. If developers have localized dev code, then some consideration needs to made into how to test the dev code against a working database. Speed is not as much of an issue when using a remote database, unless you are transferring massive amounts of data back and forth. If developers have localized copies of the dev database, then it would be good to generate SQL files to upload any changes, to make the changes easier to propagate to the various servers. The tools I use to work remotely are Beyond Compare for file synching, RedGate SQL Compare for database syncing, whatever relevant VPN client will connect to the remote network, and some remote control software, such as Remote Desktop or UltraVNC. I don't use RDS much, because I don't care for it and it doesn't solve the issue of how to move files to production, since RDS should not be enabled in production. VPN is a better solution that RDS, unless you need the extra features that RDS offers, such as debugging. A free, fast, easy to configure VPN solution is Hamachi. Most other VPN solutions require a significant investment to set up. Enjoy, Mike Chabot On 10/17/06, Beth Boutry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I'm wondering what the best practices are for 3+ developers in 3 locations. > We work on 4 projects with large file systems and over 20 datasources that > often change structure. > > Would you set up a windows 2003 development server with SQL and work on it > directly with Remote Desktop? Some of us use Dreamweaver, others Eclipse. > RDS is good for seeing databases and editing a file at a time, but to > search/replace over a folder, not possible, is it? If we all had copies of > all files there would need to be some kind of version control. > > How do you set up your work environments? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Introducing the Fusion Authority Quarterly Update. 80 pages of hard-hitting, up-to-date ColdFusion information by your peers, delivered to your door four times a year. http://www.fusionauthority.com/quarterly Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Newbie/message.cfm/messageid:2139 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Newbie/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.15
