Best Practice for interacting with Databases (opening and closing DB connection)

[charliefik (Clark Coleman)]

Hi All,

When connecting with a database that you may be interacting with multiple times during a process (storing config data on DB instead of excel configs, writing log data to DB etc., extracting/updating data from DB tables) Is it best practice to open the DB connection just once in init state of the Framework and then close it in end state or open and close the connection each time you want to interact with the DB so you aren’t leaving the connection open for potentially a long time?

Thanks all,

[Anil_G (Anil Gorthi)]

@charliefik

I think this might help

Database connection best practices

I think as long as you disconnect at some point it is fine. What you don’t want to do is reconnect to the database over and over which will take time. Also, I’m fairly sure UiPath closes the connection when the job throws an Exception or finishes (although I can’t remember for sure) Essentially, it will be good practice if you can create a DB-Connect workflow which can use and receive some settings to formulate your connectionstring (this way, any project that relies on the database connection …

And also it depends on how long the process runs as well…if its too long then its better to disconnect and connect which does not keep unecessary process live

Cheers

[vishnuvarthanp (vishnuvarthan)]

It is best to open the DB connection just once in the Init and Reuse the connection through out your workflow.
Please ensure that the DB connection is disconnected at some point of time preferably in the End state if you are opening the connection in the init state.

[charliefik (Clark Coleman)]

Thanks Anil and Vish. I’ll go with the open in init and close in end process (if using framework)