This is a count of the number of processes currently running on the VMS system at the time this value was gathered. An administrator monitors this to get an overall sense of system load and to spot an unexpected process count that could indicate runaway process creation or, conversely, an unusually idle system. For example, a sudden jump in sPsCnt after a batch job submission storm would alert an administrator to check whether the increase is expected or a sign of a misbehaving script spawning excess processes.