> Hi Alan,
>
> > I'm not sure of your language here. Can you explain a little more?
> > "open a database instance"
>
> By "open a database instance", I refer to opening a single database
> connection.
>
> > If you have a "web application", database connections are made
> > and dropped each time a page is requested.
>
> That is what I did when I developed my first FB web application. These
> are the side effects I experienced of doing so in order of importance:
>
> 1. A very small delay with each connect to the database. The
> connection process seems too expensive for a web application.
>
> 2. Data buffering or cache was constantly being lost because of the
> connect/disconnects.
>
> The side effects to this is that your web application will not be very
> 'snappy'. Additionally, under an automated test that hits your app,
> you will notice serious disk thrashing and processor consumption by FB.
>
> Please note that my FB server runs on Windows and don't know if the
> same happens under a different OS.
>
> My application is on the web and I'd post the URL here so you can see
> how responsive it is but I think that this would violate the newsgoup
> rules. Anyway, if you want, I can send you the URL via email so you
> can see the instant response in action for yourself, thanks to not
> connecting/disconnecting.
>
> Still wondering if there is a FB test to see if a connection is
> disconnected though...
>

you haven't said how you are actually maintaining a connection. e.g. PHP can
connection pool. so too can ISAPI but I don't know which if either you are
using.
The earlier PHP setup was a bit buggy with polling but the current setup is
quite reliable.
Alan