My system is running AIX 5.2 and DB2 8.1 FP10.

Here's my settings on DB2 agent:

Max number of existing agents (MAXAGENTS) = 350
Agent pool size (NUM_POOLAGENTS) = 160
Initial number of agents in pool (NUM_INITAGENTS) = 160
Max number of coordinating agents (MAX_COORDAGENTS) = MAXAGENTS
Max no. of concurrent coordinating agents (MAXCAGENTS) = MAX_COORDAGENTS

I found that the command "db2pd -agent" list out there are over 200 active agents. But in "ps -ef", there are about 200 db2agent processes. Over 90 of them are "db2agent (idle)". Are "db2agent (idle)" processes active or idle? If they are idle, why new db2agents are created when there are many idle agents?

Thanks.

idle agents are being reused if needed
it means at a certain moment there was a need for 200 agents and is lower than maxagents. they have become idle since and reused if other requests come in
memory can be flushed for these idle agents by a db2set setting : see info center