In general, for a state-reset or state-aware AppServer, you probably want to set the Initial Server Instances to Start parameter to the average number of AppServer clients you expect so that each connecting client has efficient access to an AppServer agent. Thus, you are looking for the optimum settings for the number of concurrent connections. However, if your client load varies widely, you might set this value higher to offset the impact of client surges.

For a stateless and state-free AppServer, you must tune these parameters to handle changing client load based on how many clients that you can expect a single AppServer agent to handle in a given time period. Thus, you are looking for the optimum settings for the number of concurrent requests.

One way to assess this capacity for all operating modes is to set a high value for the Maximum Server Instances parameter and a low value for the Minimum Server Instances parameter. Then, run live for a period of time and see how many AppServer agents the AppServer tends to start. You might want to set the Initial Server Instances to Start parameter to that value.