[p4] How to best setup workspaces for a build park

[Rui Casais]

Hi

Currently our database file for all the "have" revisions of our users is 
2.9 gb. To try to reduce this and improve the performance of our P4 
server I have been thinking of how to reduce the number of workspaces 
that the buildpark we have has.

We have around 15-25 active code branches at any point in time and when 
a programmer submits a changelist one of the machines from the buildpark 
will:
- Create a workspace for the branch where the submit happened, if there 
isn't one already
- Sync the workspace to the changelist number
- Compile

Now, this makes it so that we have many many workspaces, as we have 1 
workspace per branch per machine, and each workspace has its own set of 
"have" revisions.

How would you structure the workspaces across buildmachines to minimize 
this problem?

I can see only 2 solutions:
- Have 1 workspace per machine that covers all branches. Problem: The 
buildsystem needs to be changed, as handling 1 workspace per branch is 
easier and cleaner.
- Have 1 workspace per branch, shared by all machines. Problem: The 
machines will need to force sync to the desired changelist number 
everytime there's a new build to process

Thanks for your input!