ORA-00018: maximum number of sessions exceeded

Again, while running my charbench client against the swingbench Order Entry schema I got the following error message:

ORA-00018: maximum number of sessions exceeded

On googling I found an excellent thread which explains how connections, sessions, and processes are related in Oracle.
http://asktom.oracle.com/pls/asktom/f?p=100:11:413703333046318::::P11_QUESTION_ID:5671284058977

Here is what I did to find out my current value of session, and then increase its value.

SQL> show parameter sessions; NAME TYPE VALUE ------------------------------------ ----------- ------------------------------ java_max_sessionspace_size integer 0 java_soft_sessionspace_limit integer 0 license_max_sessions integer 0 license_sessions_warning integer 0 sessions integer 400 shared_server_sessions integer SQL> alter system set sessions=800 scope=spfile; System altered. SQL> shutdown immediate; Database closed. Database dismounted. ORACLE instance shut down. SQL> startup; ORACLE instance started. Total System Global Area 3540881408 bytes Fixed Size 2211864 bytes Variable Size 1644171240 bytes Database Buffers 1879048192 bytes Redo Buffers 15450112 bytes Database mounted. Database opened. SQL> show parameter sessions; NAME TYPE VALUE ------------------------------------ ----------- ------------------------------ java_max_sessionspace_size integer 0 java_soft_sessionspace_limit integer 0 license_max_sessions integer 0 license_sessions_warning integer 0 sessions integer 800 shared_server_sessions integer SQL>