[asterisk-users] Reducing number of Asterisk processes?

[Gilles]

Hello

On a uClinux-based appliance, "ps aux" shows multiple Asterisk
processes:

  380 root      11990 S   asterisk -f
  381 root      11990 S   asterisk -f
  383 root      11990 S   asterisk -f
  384 root      11990 S   asterisk -f
  385 root      11990 S   asterisk -f
  386 root      11990 S   asterisk -f
  387 root      11990 S   asterisk -f
  388 root      11990 S   asterisk -f
  389 root      11990 S   asterisk -f
  390 root      11990 S   asterisk -f
  391 root      11990 S   asterisk -f
  392 root      11990 S   asterisk -f
  393 root      11990 S   asterisk -f
  394 root      11990 S   asterisk -f
  395 root      11990 S   asterisk -f
  396 root      11990 S   asterisk -f
  397 root      11990 S   asterisk -f
  398 root      11990 S   asterisk -f
  399 root      11990 S   asterisk -f
  400 root      11990 S   asterisk -f
  401 root      11990 S   asterisk -f

I was wondering...
1. Why have more than one?
2. Provided each process is indeed using 11.990 bytes, is it possible
to reduce the number of concurrent processes, considering the fact
that this appliance will not handle more than a couple of concurrent
calls?

Thank you.