Abstract: Connection pooling is proved in the context of middleware. A request is first received from an application. The received request is forwarded to a back end mechanism. When a response is received from the back end mechanism, as a response to the request, information is obtained from the response. A pool of database connections is maintained with at least a minimum number of connections open, where the minimum number of connections is determined independent of one or more application threads. To store the information in a database, a database connection is allocated from a pool of open database connections created to facilitate access to the database. After the information is stored in the database using the database connection, the database connection is returned to the pool of database connections.

Abstract: A system for providing power substation event data to one or more master stations including: a plurality of intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) monitoring electrical power systems in a power substation, wherein each IED collects event data regarding conditions of a monitored electrical power system and queues the event data for transmission; a data concentrator in data communication with the IEDs, the concentrator including a database for storing IED event data transmitted from the event data queued in the IEDs and event queues in the concentrator for buffering IED event data from the database, and at least one master station in data communication with the concentrator, wherein the master station reads IED event data from event queues in the concentrator, and further the concentrator clears the event queues after the data is read by the master station.