Application server processes

The BMC Server Automation Application Server processes connections from many clients simultaneously. Rather than dedicating a thread to each client connection, the Application Server maintains a pool of threads that can be used for processing client activity. BMC Server Automation calls these worker threads. When a client requests any type of activity, the Application Server selects a worker thread from the pool to execute that task. When the request is complete, the worker thread is returned to the pool. Using this approach, the Application Server can manage many more client connections than it has worker threads. (The number of worker threads in the pool is configurable, as is the number of open client connections. See Managing the Application Server.)

Typically, the BMC Server Automation Application Server runs as two distinct processes. One process runs the core functionality of the Application Server. The other process is a process spawner, which launches new processes external to the Application Server process. Spawning processes externally to the Application Server can be beneficial for memory management. Process spawning is primarily used for Network Shell Script Jobs and some types of extended objects. If you prefer, you can configure the Application Server so the process spawner does not run as an external process. See Configuring the process spawner.