Work Process
Type Name
Use and Description
Dialog
To Fulfill all requests for execution of dialog steps triggered by an active user or
execute dialog programs.
Background
It executes those programs that run without user interaction or executes timedependent or event-controlled background jobs.
Update
It executes Update Requests or Asynchronous database changes that are
controlled by a COMMIT WORK statement in a dialog work process.
Spool
It pass sequential data flows onto Printers or Print Formatting to printer, file or
database.
Enqueue
Administers the lock table in shared memory or If SAP transactions have to
synchronize themselves it executes locking operations.
Types of Work Processes in SAP?
To process SAP requests from multiple front ends SAP application server is
used. The application server has the use of a dispatcher, which collects the
requests and passes them for processing to the work processes. Then the work
processes execute the desired requests (for example, an ABAP program). A
work process holds the ABAP interpreter, the database interface, the task
handler, and a screen processor that calls programs.
The following are the types of Work Processes:
Dialog Work Process in SAP
The Dialog work process fulfills all requests for the execution of dialog steps
triggered by an active user. The dialog work process is not used for requests
that take a long time and which use more CPU. Every dispatcher requires at
least two dialog work processes. The dialog work process default time is 300
seconds. If the dialog work process does not respond at this time, it will be
terminated. Also, dialog work processes are multiplexed to handle large no of
user requests. Learn more about multiplexing here. You can set the maximum
response time of the dialog work process from transaction rz11 & set the
parameter rdisp/max_wprun_time to the time you need. The no of dialog
work process can be changed by changing the parameter rdisp/wp_no_dia.
Background Work Process in SAP
The background work processes execute programs that run without user
interaction. At least two background work processes are required per SAP
system. More than one background work process can be configured per
dispatcher. Usually, the background work process is used for carrying jobs that
take a long time to finish, like client copy, client transport, etc.., Then a
number of the background work process can be changed by changing the
parameter rdisp/wp_no_btc . There are two types of background work
processes. They are A type and B type. A type of background work process is
used for mission-critical jobs. Background jobs of priority have higher priority
than B-type background jobs.
Update Work Process
Update work processes execute update requests. You need at least one update
work process per SAP system and you can have more than one per dispatcher.
The profile parameter rdisp/wp_no_vb is used to control the no of update
work process and rdisp/wp_no_vb2 for not of update work process of type v2.
There are two types of update work process. They are v1 and v2. v1 update
jobs have higher priority than v2 jobs. v1 jobs are used for critical jobs. There
must be at least one V1 update work process in the SAP System. However,
there can be more than one.V2 modules describe less critical secondary
changes. These are pure statistical updates, for example, such as result
calculations.
Spool Work Process in SAP
The Spool work process passes sequential data flows onto printers. Every SAP
system requires at least one Spool work process. However, there can be more
than one per dispatcher. The parameter to set the no of the spool work process
is rdisp/wp_no_spo.
Enqueue Work Process in SAP
The Enqueue work process administers the lock table in the shared memory.
The lock table contains the logical database locks of the ABAP stack. Only one
enqueue work process is needed for each SAP system. This is present on the
central instance. You can determine or find an central instance by looking the
various work processes present in it. For example, only the central instance
contains enqueue and message work process. rdisp/wp_no_enq. It is not
dynamically switchable.
You can see an overview of all work processes in the application server by
calling Transaction sm50.