Connection pooling/limit for SQL Server and Linq-to-SQL

Question

I found this article regarding Linq-to-SQL and SQL Server connection pooling: MSDN Blog

From what I assume from the article, is that Linq-to-SQL using the same Max Pool Size setting just as if it was an ADO object.

I have an C# app that is hitting the database pretty hard. Is there a way to tell if I am hitting my connection limit? How can I tell if my connections are being queued?

Answer 1

Use performance counters. You should be interested in following counters:

• NumberOfPooledConnections - how many connections your pool mantain
• NumberOfActiveConnections - how many connections are in use
• NumberOfFreeConnections - how many connections are not in use

Last two counters require some modification in your application configuration.

Another article about working with these counters.

Answer 2

you could open a connection and execute this stored procedure; assuming you use sql server.

EXEC SP_WHO 

you could compare all connections to the dbname with status != sleeping.