Question

What is a pre-requisite for connection pooling?

Thank you.

Answer 1

Assuming you mean database connections, the main points are:

• they must all use exactly the same connection string
• it is per-AppDomain
• for SSPI etc, the implicit user account must be common (i.e. the same domain user is being represented, or it will form multiple pools)
• it must be enabled and supported by the provider; in the case of SqlConnection it is on by default
• you must have not explicitly disabled the pool

For most common cases using SqlConnection, this just means “will be pooled per unique connection-string” – the rest is automatic and just works.

also; remember to use using statements around your connection usage, so you release things back to the pool even in exception – otherwise you’ll exhaust it.