I can't argue with experience - your "does" beats my "should" (especially since I'm too lazy to check it myself). Sounds like a bug in Apache::DBI - it's supposed to keep track of instance/user/passwd (I think) combos and give you an existing connection if one matches/exists when you ask to connect. A copy of the connection handle is kept in Apache::DBI, so the "my" shouldn't make a difference - should it?

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Update
Actually, it's more likely that something in your setup prevented Apache::DBI from being used by DBI - in which case the standard DBI::connect method would have been used, and without disconnects, connections would pile up.