title: Pattern for connecting to different databases using JDBC
body: <p>I'm writing an application which has to be configurable to connect to Oracle, SQL Server and MySQL depending on client whim.</p>
  
  <p>Up till now I'd been planning on using the JDBC-ODBC bridge and just connecting to the databases using different connection strings.</p>
  
  <p><strong>I'm told this is not very efficient.</strong></p>
  
  <ol>
  <li><p>Is there a pattern or best practice for connecting to multiple database systems? Or for selecting which driver to use?</p></li>
  <li><p>Should I have it configurable? but include all three drivers or build three separate clients?</p></li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>I'm not doing anything complex just pumping (inserting) data into the database from an event stream.</p>