I can't find anyone having posted their average connection times, but I'd like
to know what's "normal", because this doesn't feel right.

I've got Tomcat/DBCP configured to use 10 to 200 connections at a time (maxIdle,
maxActive). I can verify that it's keeping connections open
(rdb$set_context('USER_SESSION'... was used to make *sure* a given connection is
getting used more than once). And yet, just doing datasource.getConnection()
consistently takes 50 to 100 milliseconds, even after I've pounded the server
and made sure the connection pool is primed, which I find strange -- the rest of
my statements execute in as little as a millisecond! The entire servlet call may
only add a few milliseconds on top of the cost of connecting to the server, so
proportionally, it's a big deal to me.

These tests were against localhost, with nothing else hitting the server. Can
anyone confirm this is normal? Better/worse than average? Any tips on getting it
to "connect" (start a new transaction) faster with pooling?

Tomcat 6, Jaybird 2.1.6 (with a custom tbp_mappings file that makes
REPEATABLE_READ not wait), Firebird 2.1.1, JRE 1.6. The resultSetHoldable stuff
is because of JasperReports, so sub-reports won't fail. If that's somehow the
problem, I can probably have two resources, one for everyday servlets, and
another just for reports.

Tomcat server.xml config:

<Resource auth="Container"
validationQuery="select 1 from rdb$database"
defaultTransactionIsolation="REPEATABLE_READ"
driverClassName="org.firebirdsql.jdbc.FBDriver"
logAbandoned="true"
name="jdbc/eddy"
password="********"
removeAbandoned="true"
removeAbandonedTimeout="300"
type="javax.sql.DataSource"

url="jdbc:firebirdsql:localhost/3050:c:\\projects\\bnt\\database\\eddy1.fdb?autoReconnect=true&defaultResultSetHoldable=true"
maxActive="200"
maxIdle="10"
maxWait="1000"
username="********"/>

Method for getting a connection for my servlet:

public static Connection GetFirebirdConnection () throws Exception {
Context initContext = new InitialContext();
Context envContext = (Context) initContext.lookup("java:/comp/env");
DataSource ds = (DataSource) envContext.lookup("jdbc/eddy");
Profiler.push("GettingConnection");
Connection conn = ds.getConnection();
Profiler.pop("GettingConnection");
conn.setAutoCommit(false);
qry.voidVoidProcedure(conn, "ut_begin_session"); // increments "session_uses"
l4j.debug( "use# " + qry.singletonQuery(conn, "select
rdb$get_context('USER_SESSION', 'session_uses') from rdb$database", null) + " on
" + "conn# " + qry.singletonQuery(conn, "select current_connection from
rdb$database", null) + " known as " + "trans# " + qry.singletonQuery(conn,
"select current_transaction from rdb$database", null));
return conn;
}

Example in my log files:

INFO 16:15:23.968 TP-Processor26 eddy.util.Profiler : ... GettingConnection
lasted 107.2ms.
DEBUG 16:15:23.968 TP-Processor26 eddy.util.db.mgt : use# 31 on conn# 238645
known as trans# 1168430
(On this particular call, the *entire* process took 181ms -- connecting to the
database was more than half the cost!)

Thanks (anyone),

-Philip