Visual Basic 2008 Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach

8.2. Use Connection Pooling

Problem

You need to use a pool of database connections to improve application performance and scalability.

Solution

Configure the connection pool using settings in the connection string of a connection object.

How It Works

Connection pooling significantly reduces the overhead associated with creating and destroying database connections. Connection pooling also improves the scalability of solutions by reducing the number of concurrent connections a database must maintain. Many of these connections sit idle for a significant portion of their lifetimes.

With connection pooling, the first time you create a connection, the .NET Framework checks the pool to see whether a connection is available. If the pool hasn't yet reached ...