Managing User Connections

(Process mode only) During process mode, if the SMP system supports network affinity migration (the process of moving network I/O from one engine to another.

SMP systems that support this migration allow SAP ASE to distribute the network I/O load among all of its engines), each engine handles the network I/O for its connections. During login, SAP ASE migrates the client connection task from engine 0 to the engine currently servicing the smallest number of connections. The client’s tasks run network I/O on that engine (network affinity) until the connection is terminated. To determine if your SMP system supports this migration, see the configuration documentation for your platform.

By distributing the network I/O among its engines, SAP ASE can handle more user connections. The per-process limit on the maximum number of open file descriptors no longer limits the number of connections. Adding more engines linearly increases the maximum number of file descriptors, as stored in the global variable @@max_connections.

As you increase the number of engines, SAP ASE prints the increased @@max_connections value to standard output and the error log file after you restart the server. You can query the value using:

select @@max_connections

This number represents the maximum number of file descriptors allowed by the operating system for your process, minus these file descriptors used by SAP ASE:

One for each master network listener on engine 0 (one for every “master” line in the interfaces file entry for that SAP ASE)
One for each engine’s standard output
One for each engine’s error log file
Two for each engine’s network affinity migration channel
One per engine for configuration
One per engine for the interfaces file

For example, if SAP ASE is configured for one engine, and the value of @@max_connections equals 1019, adding a second engine increases the value of @@max_connections to 2039 (if there is only one master network listener).

You can configure the number of user connections parameter to take advantage of an increased @@max_connections limit. However, each time you decrease the number of engines using max online engines, you must also adjust the number of user connections value accordingly. Reconfiguring max online engines or number of user connections is not dynamic, so you must restart the server to change these configuration values. See System Administration Guide, Volume 1 > Setting Configuration Parameters.

Note: Because threaded mode runs a single process, the per-process descriptor limit limits the number of user connections that SAP ASE can support. You may need to adjust the number of file descriptors available in the shell that starts SAP ASE, which may require assistance from the operating system administrator to increase the hard limit.