It is not advised to kill the users to disconnect them from the database, specifically but not exclusively when these are self-service clients.
Disconnecting a user through Progress utilities is less likely to bring down the database as a result, as when the user is disconnected using PROMON/PROSHUT, any resources that user is holding will be handled by the database manager before their userid is removed from shared-memory and their entry no longer shown in PROMON User Control
.
Please Refer to the following Documentation for further detail:
How do I Kill thee?
http://download.psdn.com/media/exch_audio/2008/OPS/OPS-16_KOUFALIS.pdf
The first step in terminating a process is always to disconnect the User from the database using PROMON or PROSHUT Options:
Option 1: promon dbname > 8. Shut Down Database > 1 Disconnect a User
Option 2: proshut dbname > 1 Disconnect a User
Option 3: proshut dbname -C disconnect <user number>
Further investigative steps are detailed in the following KB article: Troubleshooting why PROSHUT does not remove the userid from the PROMON User Control Table
Finally, it's not normal for user processes to crash out or need to be disconnected. This is something that needs to be investigated at the application level to improve error trapping or code review for example.
