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

[Ed Mack]

Rui,
You should look at using the (new) "-p" option in your sync command.
The workspaces that use it won't update their have lists.  I think the
flag was designed for a configuration like yours--a build farm that
simply runs integration builds.

And, as another user mentioned, a 2.9GB db.have isn't unusual.

Ed

-----Original Message-----
From: perforce-user-bounces at perforce.com
[mailto:perforce-user-bounces at perforce.com] On Behalf Of Rui Casais
Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2008 6:51 AM
To: perforce-user at perforce.com
Subject: [p4] How to best setup workspaces for a build park

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!