We have a repository using the adapter pattern. Since the repo was designed for use by web applications, we just open a connection the first time the adapter is used and keep it open for the repo's whole life.

We are adapting the repo for use by a windows service. Leaving the connection open makes me nervous. Is there an official recommendation on this stuff? We can always recreate the repo every n seconds as the service spends most of its time idle.

Thanks!

B

creating an adapter is really very lightweight (almost instantly), so I'd really opt for closing the connection when you're done and also not keep the adapter around. Especially in a web scenario, as multiple requests will be executed on multiple threads which means you will run the risk of sharing the adapter across threads, which will cause big problems.

So what you have with a shared adapter instance and an open connection is really not what you should do.

Whether it's a web application or a service. It's always recommended to open the connection when needed, and close it as soon as you possible.

Thanks to connection pooling, re-opening a connection should not have any impact on performance.