PAS for OpenEdge uses a multi-session agent, which means that a single agent can concurrently handle requests from several clients, each in its own session, and each running its own application model. When a multi-session agent starts up, it runs any Agent Startup procedure that you have defined for the PAS for OpenEdge instance. This procedure can be used to perform tasks required by all server sessions that run in the PAS for OpenEdge instance. One common task is to create all self-service database connections that are shared by the server sessions created and managed by a given multi-session agent. Each multi-session agent is a user with its own self-service connection to a given database, and all of its server sessions share that same connection as separate users.

This Startup procedure takes a character string as an input parameter. For example:

DEFINE INPUT PARAMETER startup-data AS CHARACTER NO-UNDO.
The session that executes an Agent Startup procedure runs effectively session-free. Any global data that is set in this session expires when the session terminates and is not available to other sessions of the multi-session agent. You use the following properties in openedge.properties to set them: agentStartupProc and agentStartupProcParam.
Note: Although all the ABL sessions started by a single multi-session agent can share a database connection, they cannot share data or running procedures.