Connection to the database

Question

I have a page that contains a task menu. The links of some of the tasks leaves me to a jsp page. The bean associated to the loaded page connects to the database to load the dynamic data.
My questions are: each time someone loads the jsp page, a connection to the database is established? Where do I have to close the connection?
Is this a good solution or is it better to use a servlet that in its init method establishes the connection, and then pass this connection to the bean? If I use a servlet the action of the taks menu will have to call the servlet and then this will have to redirect to the correct jsp page. Am I right?
Where can I find a good example that helps me decide when to use a servlet or when to use a jsp page?
Thanks for your comments and help

Answer 1

The links of some of the tasks lead you to jsp pages. From each of those jsp pages call a servlet (keep only 1 common servlet).
This servlet would determine the request type (i.e. from which of the jsp pages the request is coming from). Based on the request type the servlet would perform the operations.
Write a class say, CreateConnectionHelper that creates the connection.
The servlet will call this class whenever it needs to create a connection.
After you create a connection perform the database operations and close the connection.