[p4] Trying to improve performance

[Neal Firth]

> The second part of that is when the build servers detect a change,
> they all try to sync at the same time and there they really bring
> Perforce down to its knees. Is there a way to avoid that other than to
> stagger the syncs (which would increase the time until we know if the
> build succeeded or failed)?

Sounds like either a lot of files are changing between builds or you're
forcing a "clean" environment prior to every build.

You might consider having your build servers talk to a separate P4 Proxy
server. There is still general server overhead to make sure that the proxy
is up to date - but it's a lot less than dealing with the individual build
servers. I've also heard of using a proxy on each build server - oh the joys
of big disks. More general server overhead, but very fast build workspace
population.

With a little router/ bridge/ NIC magic you can arrange it so that the build
servers only talk to the proxy server and don't add load to the general
developer network.

Various combinations of these techniques have worked very well for several
of my clients with similar problems.

Regards,

// Neal - PCP/ PCT