Connection pooling allows you to reuse connections rather than creating a new one every time the driver needs to establish a connection to the underlying database. Your Progress DataDirect driver enables connection pooling without requiring changes to your client application.

Note: Connection pooling works only with connections that are established using SQLConnect or SQLDriverConnect with the SQL_DRIVER_NO_PROMPT argument and only with applications that are thread-enabled.

DataDirect connection pooling that is implemented by the DataDirect driver is different than connection pooling implemented by the Windows Driver Manager. The Windows Driver Manager opens connections dynamically, up to the limits of memory and server resources. DataDirect connection pooling, however, allows you to control the number of connections in a pool through the Min Pool Size (minimum number of connections in a pool) and Max Pool Size (maximum number of connections in a pool) connection options. In addition, DataDirect connection pooling is cross-platform, allowing it to operate on UNIX and Linux.

Important: On a Windows system, do not use both Windows Driver Manager connection pooling and DataDirect connection pooling at the same time.

The following topics provide general information on how DataDirect connection pooling works. For detailed information on connection pooling options, refer to "Connection option descriptions" in the user's guide for your driver.