When creating a JDBC data source in BIRT, you select the driver class and provide a URL to connect to the database. If the database requires user authentication, provide a user name and a password. If the database to which to connect uses connection pooling, specify the path to the service. Many databases use a connection pool—a cache of database connection objects—to minimize the overhead of establishing a connection to the database. A connection pool optimizes database performance through the reuse of connections, which reduces the need to repeatedly open and close connections each time a report is run.