Also, instead of just dieing outright, you could call a subroutine. I have some high priority scripts that run overnight as well, and if they fail, I _need_ to know about it. Something like this works nicely:

my $dbh = DBI->connect(...)
   or handle_connect_fail($DBI::errstr);

sub handle_connect_fail
 {
   my ($error) = shift;
   # print loud warnings,
   # maybe sleep 300 and retry.
   # Or use mail send module, and have your script page you.
 }
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You can do a lot of fun things with or sub().