You can test a JDBC connection pool for usability in one of these ways:
In the Administration Console, open the Resources component, open the JDBC component, select Connection Pools, and select the connection pool you want to test. Then select the Ping button in the top right corner of the page. For details, see the Sun Java System Application Server Platform Edition 8.2 Administration Guide.
Use the asadmin ping-connection-pool command. For details, see the Sun Java System Application Server Platform Edition 8.2 Reference Manual
Both these commands fail and display an error message unless they successfully connect to the connection pool.