Resource Quotas and Limits

Each user account has limits as to how much of the system's resources its processes are allowed to consume. Some of these limits apply to a single process, and some are shared among all processes in a job. These limits are known as limits and quotas. These terms have subtly different technical meanings, but the new user needs only to recognize that they are limits placed on system-resource usage.

The general user also has little need to understand the exact meaning of each item; they are introduced here only to illustrate that OpenVMS includes such a concept.

For example, the number of processes you may create at once, the number of I/O operations that may be outstanding at one time, the number of open files allowed, and the amount of memory a process can use are limited by your user account.

As an example, a UAF record includes an item called WSextent. In the example, it has a value of 2048, meaning that a process owned by this user may consume a maximum of 2048 pages of physical memory (known as its working set extent) at one time. Working sets are described in Part 2, "A Technical Introduction."

Note 

A value of zero indicates there is no limit for that item. The exceptions are "Prio" and "Queprio," which refer to relative priority levels, not resource limitations.

Your system manager is responsible for setting appropriate values for these items. The goal is to provide the best overall system performance within the limits of the computer's resources.