#!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; package MyConnections; use vars ($dbh); unless($dbh) { # do stuff here, establish connection/etc } 1; Then simply include a module as similar to the above if you're already using Apache mod_perl/registry. The module remains persistent (compiled) per each HTTPD process Apache spawns, thus any program which uses the above module would have access to the already instantiated $dbh. We use this method for memcached and database handles - the only caveat being that you have to manage one connection per httpd process on the server but it works very well.