my basic question is what kind of impact does this have on the server..

lets say for example, there is an older program in my company that opens connections to a mysql database server at a high rate (everything they do with the application basically opens a server connections)

however, this application was not designed in the way to dispose of the connections after they where created.. alot of the time the connections remain open but are never used again, open 'dead' connections i guess you could say.

they just remain connected until the server times them out, or until an admin goes in and removes the sleeping connections manually.

im guessing this could be responsible for sometimes not able to connect errors etc. that we receive from other systems that try to access the mysql database? (connections limit reached)

could this slow down the server as well? curious what all this could exactly cause.

thanks!