3rd party software: split between vobs

Question

If you put third party software in a different vob than your application code, then wouldn't it affect the performance of build operation?

Disclaimer: performance is a hard issue, and I am not an expert in that. I am typically more concerned by getting things right first (usual claim :-)

Build

The build might be more expensive, as it has to access across two vobs, compared to accessing under one vob but under different branches.

I don't know about your configuration but I doubt this makes sense under ours.

• The disks affected to our vob storage area are taken bundled at the HP-UX level as one big logical chunk (/vobstorage) within which ClearCase has no control.
• Anyway, at the logical level, I believe there are more chances that two builds conflict -and thus wait- for resources in the same vob than in different ones: it is likely to be more efficient to split into smaller vobs!

Backup

Also is it easier to backup up and build the release under one vob?

Not at ours: we backup the vobstorage, not the individual vobs. We currently backup from snapshots, which means that even the locking is minimal.

Summary

In short my question is which of the two configurations is better?

I stick to my belief that it is better to split, mainly for multisiting reasons, which are overwhelming in my mind. The more it'll go, the more we'll collaborate, and once multisite is there, there is no excuse not to use it!

In case you decide to put it under SCM which config is better?

config1:
        vob1/project1/src
        vob1/project1/include
        vob1/iona
        vob1/3rd part software
        
config2:
        vob1/project1/src
        vob1/project1/include
        vob2/iona                       - Different vob2
        vob2/3rd part software          - Different vob2

I prefer option 2, as explained above.

Furthermore: beware projects. Be optimistic and hope that the code they produce will overlive them.
Reuse and even plain sharing will break the interproject barriers!