Connection Pooling in SQL Azure

Question

I'm working on an ASP.NET MVC app. This app is relying on data stored in a SQL Azure database. When I logged into the SQL Azure management interface, I notice that I had 17 active connections to my database. I vaguely remember the concept of database connection pooling from long ago. For some reason, I thought to use connection pooling, you needed to add a setting to your connection string in your web.config file. For the life of me though, I can't remember or find documentation on a setting.

For reference sake, I'm using System.Data.SqlClient as the provide in my connection string settings. Can someone please tell me how to use connection pooling in SQL Azure? Considering I'm the only one hitting the database, 17 active connections seemed high. I figured if connection pooling was turned on, only 1 active connection should appear.

Thank you.

Mohammed Ali Mohammed Ali · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-14T06:10:27

Connection pooling is a default behavior that cannot be configured by the client for Sql Azure. Your app should be getting the benefits of connection pooling by default. Ensure that your connections strings are unique as a new pool will be created for connections with different strings. This article in MSDN specifies:

When a new connection is opened, if the connection string is not an exact match to an existing pool, a new pool is created. Connections are pooled per process, per application domain, per connection string and when integrated security is used, per Windows identity. Connection strings must also be an exact match; keywords supplied in a different order for the same connection will be pooled separately.

Now with regards to a setting that you don't remember. You may have been talking about MARS (Multiple Active Result Sets). This feature is now available on Sql Azure.

Connection Pooling in SQL Azure

2 Answers