DROID opens multiple connection pools to the same database.

When DROID starts, it opens multiple connection pools to the same database. This can be seen in the logs when it starts, the HikariPool is initialised multiple times. This is slow and unnecessary.

I’ve traced why this happens in the git history.

1. DROID used to have a single data source for the embedded derby database (which is all that is needed).
2. A connection pool was added to improve performance. It’s unlikely that this improved performance, since DROID opens a few connections to the database and holds on to them as long as it needs to. It isn’t a server application trying to share scarce database connections among thousands of concurrent connections.
3. A factory for the connection pool was added later. This seems to be because of strange initialisation / dependency issues in spring initialisation. The factory also reloads the driver class every time it creates a new pool.
4. All the things that used to get the connection pool now get a new connection pool from the factory.

The net result is that all the things that just need an occasional database connection now get a connection pool to themselves (and try to reload the database driver).

[nishihatapalmer]

I’m working on how to fix this. Everything still works, so there’s no massive issue here, but it would be nice to clean this up.

[nishihatapalmer]

I also misunderstood @adamretter 's suggestion to mark it as a singleton. I thought we were talking about a single factory, rather than a single output from the factory. Thanks Adam.