This is a very common pattern for two-tier application (client/server). On startup the application creates and holds a connection to the server.

On the other hand, most n-tier apps acquire the connection right before it's going to be used and then release it right afterwards. This works especially well if you're using COM+ since it will manage the connection pool.

-Mike


>I was wondering about something. For all of our SQL Server requests, we issue a connection string to get a handle to our database. Only on the first connection, that it will take one or two additional seconds. Then, on all other connections, it goes fast.
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>Would there be any optimization by only doing that at the startup of the application and then be able to use the handle whenever we need it without having to get a new handle from a connection for each request?