svnsync vs hotcopy

I am trying to come up with a DR plan for our Subversion server. We are using a RHEL4 server with Subversion 1.4.4 and Apache 2.0. I've read the "Repository Replication" and "Repository Backup" sections of the SVN Book, but I'm still unsure.

Basically there are two possibilities: using svnsync or hotcopy. In my opinion svnsync is preferable, and here's why.

Once the mirrored repository has been initialised and synced the first time, the amount of data sent for the next synchronisations is minimum. With a hotcopy instead, the full repository is sent every time.

Although svnsync does not copy changes to properties in older revision, which obviously hotcopy does, this is not a big deal to me as we only change the svn:log property for the just committed revision (to tide the revision up with our in-house bug-tracking system). I just need to be careful and call svnsync after the log has been updated.

In case of a DR, using hotcopy it would be just a matter of changing the DNS to point to the new IP address, and the users would never even know that we had a DR. However, I understand that if I am careful and set the UUID of the mirrored repository to the same of the real one, changing the DNS is the only thing I would have to do even if I use svnsync.

With svnsync, hooks are not copied. I'm actualy not sure whether that's the case with hotcopy too or not, but it doesn't matter to me. All hooks are versioned in a separate repository, so it would be just a matter of setting up the correct symbolic link.

Any comments on what I said so far?

I know that changing the mirrored repository is not recommended, but can I checkout a WC of it on the mirror server? And keep it up-to-date using the post-commit script (so that it's updated every time the repository is synced with the real one)?

Thanks
Giulio

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Received on 2009-01-13 16:57:08 CET