Local area networks (LANS) now enable personal computers (PCs) or terminals (typically referred to as clients) to share resources, such as disk storage and printers, typically located at a host or server. This type of network is generally referred to as a client/server network. Known client/server networks require a separate server process for each service request received from a client. Undesirably, requiring that a separate process be created for each client request quickly exhausts available server processes and results in an overload of the server. Network server architecture enhancements now enable a single server process to handle requests from a predefined number of clients to reduce the likelihood of server overload. In such an arrangement, clients are assigned to a server process until the predefined number is reached, whereupon a new server process is created to handle additional clients. However, since the network server designer never knows how many client service requests will be made at any point in time, or what types of service requests (batch or interactive) they will be, it is difficult to effectively predefine the number of clients to assign to a server process to optimize server performance. Since the procedure for assigning a new client service request to an existing server process or to a new server process is critical to server performance, there is a continuing need to further improve this procedure.