Database sync between local and production

If you have databases reachable from the outside ie: mysql1.example.com you can work on a local development environment connected to that the whole time.

I just found a nice thing to put in wp-config.php to be able to change the host depending on your environment

$host = $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'];
define( 'WP_HOME', 'http://' . $host );
define( 'WP_SITEURL', 'http://' . $host );

Then there are setups like:

• Varying Vagrant: https://github.com/10up/varying-vagrant-vagrants
• WP-Stack: https://github.com/markjaquith/WP-Stack