How to create a TCP/IP Socket connection pool on IBM WebSphere Application Server 8?

Question

I have a situation where every request handled by my web-application that is deployed on IBM WebSphere Application Server 8 has to talk to a remote system via a Socket connection. Is possible to create a connection pool for the Socket connections in IBM WebSphere Application Server 8. If yes, how?

Environment: Java 1.6, JEE5, IBM WAS8

Answer 1

WebSphere Application Server doesn't have builtin support for pooling arbitrary connections. It does support JCA and its connection pooling, so probably the closest you'll get is to write your own resource adapter that opens connections. That's no exactly trivial, and unfortunately, I'm not aware of any libraries that already do this.