Oracle Database Discussions

I understand that I can simply increase the max processes setting, but that would only be a band-aid.

For some reason, the mechanism that oracle uses to get rid of stale processes is dying. We can find no indication why. The database runs for some random period of time (anywhere from 2 hours to 2 days), then before our eyes, the number of processes rockets up and our application that depends on the database dies. Even after the application has died, the stale processes do not get cleared out. The only way back into the DB is a restart.

It is running on Windows Server 2003 R2 64-bit. Are there any windows security/policy settings that can cause oracle issues? My only guess is that this is a server that has been hardened to meet requirements for deployment on a military network and some security setting they have imposed is causing the issue. Even if that is the case, I am clueless as to which setting it could be.

Has anyone else seen any issues relating to interactions with the Windows policy settings?


Thanks
Clint Cone