c3p0 - JDBC3 Connection and Statement Pooling

c3p0 is an easy-to-use library for making traditional JDBC drivers "enterprise-ready" by augmenting them with functionality defined by the jdbc3 spec and the optional extensions to jdbc2. It provides (DriverManager-based) JDBC drivers with JNDI-bindable DataSources, including DataSources that implement Connection and Statement Pooling, as described by the jdbc3 spec and jdbc2 std extension.

A connection pool is used to minimize the number of connections opened between application and database. Statement pool stores a partially compiled version of a statement in order to increase performance.