Subversion cluster / replication / HA

Question

What's a good way of making SVN highly available?

We take backups of our Subversion server, but this is not enough, as svn is very important. We would like to implement some HA mechanmism for Subversion

There is a commercial solution (http://www.wandisco.com/subversion/clustering/) but maybe I can use another mechanism or even git with svn compability?

Solution 1

You're going to want to use svnsync.

The Subversion book is a good reference for this.

Also, you may be interested in what the Apache Software Foundation is doing.

Solution 2

I work for WANdisco, and I will explain why svnsync will not meet your needs for implementing HA Subversion.

The downside of svnsync is that if your subversion server goes down, then you will have no write access to the repository, and the svnsync copy of the data will be out of date. The only way to guarantee HA is to have a fully working, up-to-date copy of the repository on a second server which can be put into play immediately when the main Subversion server goes down.

In this rispect WANdisco replication technology is unique - the active-active replication technology allows for real-time replication of any changes to the backup svn server: not a scheduled replication like you would have with other solutions.

Regards, Jon

Solution 3

There is a commercial solution (http://www.wandisco.com/subversion/clustering/) but maybe I can use another mechanism or even git with svn compability?

You could try VisualSVN Server 3.0 Enterprise Edition or newer. The new feature in the 3.0 release is the Multisite Repository Replication. The feature allows you to keep multiple writeable (or read only, you choose depending on the task) mirror repositories at remote locations.

The feature is VERY easy to setup through VisualSVN Server's management console aka VisualSVN Server Manager. See the instruction "Getting started with Multisite Repository Replication".

Comments

[Admin]

Related: stackoverflow.com/questions/1445156/…

[Admin]

Hello PieterB, how did you end up setting up your SVN HA. I am having the same issue. I dont want to pay for Wandisco (approx $30k) as its way out of the price range of most development shops. There has to be a real way to get HA from SVN that does not cost an arm and a leg.