The real question is are you using transactions in SQL? if not Apache::DBI can hide a lot of this from your modules. You can get a new handle for each module and let Apache::DBI sort out the optimisation of handle usage.

You need to be careful if you wish to use transactions within you SQL. Both queries in a transaction need to be passed the same handle to work on otherwise you generate two independant transactions.

• Generally selects rarely need to be part of a transaction (except when doing a FOR UPDATE lock)
• Single updates or inserts do not need to be part of a transaction.
• Multiple table updates or inserts do need to be part of a transaction if it is required that a single failure causes all updates/insets to fail.

Hope it helps
UnderMine