Need for a local Subversion server?

I have a question regarding the need of a subversion mirror server.

Our work is done on UNIX systems. We currently have a master repository in
England. We mirror it as a read only repository to the states. The system
that acts as the Subversion server in the states is rather old and its
faster to do checkouts from the remote repository then the local one. I’m
curious why we even need a local subversion server. We cannot add anything
to the local repository. Developers check out the code, update the files in
their working directory, then commit them to the remote server.

Now trying to commit, resolve conflicts, and merges are another matter.
Latency has a far greater impact on those tasks. We often thought about
making a post-hook on the commit to initiate syncs from the master to the
remote site in order to do the conflict resolution locally, allowing our
developers to use a GUI interface or type in their xterm and not wait for
the characters to appear. We have yet to do that test to see if it would
help.

(We did try the WanDisco Enterprise solution and like it, but in a spending
freeze so absolutely no funds for that product)

I do appreciate your time and any constructive responses. :)

phil
Received on 2011-07-22 19:44:37 CEST