connections how many to use

hi,

i have an application for which i m using a connection which stays throughout the life of the application. this is a normal sqloledb connection.

but now i stumbled across datashape which i have to use for this complex query.

now the problem is that i will have to use another connection, as the provider is different.

what shud i do? 2 connections 4 a single user? i will need both the connections as while saving i need the shape connection again
and for browsing will need another.

thnxDoesn't sound like you have a choice.
Shouldn't be a problem unless you have msde or personal edition.|||but then with the number of users growing wouldnt that slow down things.
i also want to make sure performance isnt affected.

unless i solve this query: http://dbforums.com/t715674.html, i will have to use datashape.|||What type of application are we talking about? When using ASP(.NET) or VB(.NET) there is a thing called connection-pooling, and what it basically does is "cache" your connection to the database so each time you create it it doesn't really get created, it just gets re-enabled. This depends on one single thing; that the connectionstring is the same throughout your application. If you have 10 users using one connstring an 1 user using another both connections have to physically be created each time that 1 user has made a pagehit.

So what I'm basically saying is: avoid different connectionstrings if you can.|||well i m using the same connection for all users, m using VB 6 sp5, have defined a connectionstring in a bas module and that same string is used to connect so i can use pooling there.

But the problem is that the application requires me to connect to the d/b using MSDATASHAPE for fetching records, now i need to connect to the d/b to validate certain things on the fly like lookup and search.

can i use the msdatashape connection to use any other provider for executing normal sql queries?|||You might have troublt getting connection pooling to have any affect if the connections are made from the client.
If you have a remote DB access layer then it would - but then you probably wouldn't be holding connections.|||uh you should drop the shape thing and look into sql server analysis services.

with this, you can render an mdx statement in a view-- and you can have it take any shape you want.|||i didnt knw that.
do u knw any place where i can begin that?

also the problem with shape is that i have to then use different recordsets for viewing/editing etc for each child recordset.
thats not good at all is it?