Expert Oracle and Java Security: Programming Secure Oracle Database Applications with Java

Using Connection Pools

If you are strictly concerned with desktop client applications, then you can skip this section. Connection pools are generally only needed for multi-threaded, multi-user Server applications. A connection pool is a collection of connections that are available for use by clients or client threads. As needed, a client will acquire a connection from the pool, use it to query or update the Oracle database, and then return it to the pool.

A connection pool usually exists for the duration of the JVM. Consider this scenario: a web application server (for example, Tomcat) starts running and an application requests a connection from a pool. At that point, a pool of connections is established, and one of the connections is provided ...