We have a build machine running in our development department, which we’ve set up to build continuously throughout the working day.
What this does is:
- Deletes the source code previously checked out (5 minutes)
- Does a clean checkout from subversion (15 minutes)
- Builds a whole bunch of C++ and .NET code (35 minutes)
- Builds installers and run unit tests (5 minutes)
Given the above, what sort of impact would adding different hardware have on improving the time it takes to do the above?
For example – I was thinking about using an SSD for the harddisk as compiling involves a lot of random disk access.
The subversion server is currently a virtual machine – would switching it to be a physical machine help the slow checkout?
What impact would upgrading from a Core 2 Duo processor to an i7 make?
Any other suggestions on speeding up the above?
One trick that might speed up the SVN checkout process could be to have a working copy on the build machine, update the working copy and do a svn export from the working copy to the build directory. This should reduce the load on the SVN server and reduce network traffic.
Another trick to reduce the first 5 minutes of cleaning could be to move the old build dir to a temp folder on the same disk and then use another background task to delete the old build dir when the main build completes (could be a nightly cleanup task).