A Three-Tier Application

• To obtain a database connection, first look up the data source that was configured in the JSF container:

  InitialContext ctx = new InitialContext();
  DataSource source = (DataSource) ctx.lookup("java:comp/env/jdbc/mydb");
  Connection conn = source.getConnection();
  try
  {
     Use the connection
  }
  finally
  {
     conn.close();
  }

• JSF containers such as Tomcat manage a pool of database connections
  • Pooling avoids the overhead of creating new database connections
  • Pooling is completely automatic