1) We need to create one instance of the httpClient[1].
2) Recommend to use PoolingClientConnectionManager (or PoolingHttpClientConnectionManager in (4.3)) and specify defaults.
3) Good article for defaults configs - Sensible Defaults for Apache HttpClient:
http://dev.bizo.com/2013/04/sensible-defaults-for-apache-httpclient.html
Resume table:
Configuration Connection timeout Socket timeout MaxTotal MaxPerRoute SameRegion 125 ms 125 ms 200 100 SameRegionWithUSEastFailover 1 second 1 second 200 100 CrossRegion 10 seconds 10 seconds 200 100 MaxTimeout 1 minute 5 minutes 200 100
4) Once the call is made to the resource, the connection can be reused by his manager if the method call releaseConnections () is done, from here - HttpClient - Best Pratices : http://vincentdevillers.blogspot.fr/2011/09/httpclient-best-pratices.html
References:
1) From documentation - "Generally it is recommended to have a single instance of HttpClient per communication component or even per application. However, if the application makes use of HttpClient only very infrequently, and keeping an idle instance of HttpClient in memory is not warranted, it is highly recommended to explicitly shut down the multithreaded connection manager prior to disposing the HttpClient instance. This will ensure proper closure of all HTTP connections in the connection pool."
2) Http Client - Performance - http://hc.apache.org/httpclient-legacy/performance.html
