Working with Replicas over FTP?

[Nicolas Bustillos]

Hi people,

I've started using EA on a collaborative basis and faced some issues. At first, I was using ODBC on a MySQL database, but there were many issues related to connectivity and performance. After checking the Replicas functionality, I thought it could be an ideal solution because of the independency and only sporadic need of connection. However, our collaboration takes place at quite a long distance and I believe FTP is our only choice for a shared folder.
To test this, I first made the Design Master in my local disc and then copied to the FTP folder. I make some modifications in a replica, synchronize it pointing to the FTP file, I get a successful message, but after checking the file at the FTP I see nothing has changed. I then realize that if I move the original master file from my local disc and retry, I get that the file couldn't be found, even though I'm specifically pointing to the existing FTP file when prompted by the Win dialog.
Should I make the replica directly from the FTP?... Because I can't; when I try to open a file through the FTP and point to any .eap file I get a message "Invalid file name". Or am I getting this all wrong by going the FTP way? Are there any other suggestions as how to achieve this synchronization over the Internet?

I'll appreciate any kind of help. Thanks in advance.

Nicolas Bustillos

[alesliehughes]

FTP is a protocol for uploading and downloading of files.  It's not designed to act like a network file system (SMB, NFS, CIFS, etc).

I would use MYSQL in conjuction with the WAN Optimizer (http://www.sparxsystems.com/resources/corporate/index.html#wan).
If you also check the "Lazy load" option when creating the connection (In Enterprise Architect), this allows for good preformance on most connections.

Alistair

[Nicolas Bustillos]

Thank you for your reply. Unfortunately, and as I read in other posts, the fact that the Wan Optimizer is a service exclusive to windows came as a major inconvenience to us.

However, insisting with the Replica functionality, we found an interesting alternative by combining it with the Dropbox application (dropbox.com). With it, you can share and sync folders online from a local folder which seems like a regular folder to the operative system. So far we haven't encounter any type of problem, but we are proceeding with caution.

In case anyone else was looking for a workaround to this limitation in Replicas, maybe they can give it a try. And if the experts can tell us of any possible implication of working with this method, I would really appreciate any advice on this.

Nicolas

[Geert Bellekens]

Nicolas,

I'm afraid your setup involving replica's and dropbox is a disaster waiting to happen (search for "Replica" on the forum to find the appropriate horror stories)
Have you read about DBMS and Version Control configurations? I think either (or both) are a better option then what you are planning.

Geert