Apache::DBI persistence question?

[Tom Weber <suppressed>]

Are there any ways to implement persistent connections to different 
databases under one instance of Apache? From my reading of 
Apache::DBI and from some of my testing it appears that this can not 
be done. Here is what I want to do. Server1 is  running multiple 
named based virtual hosts. Each of the database run on different servers.

server1 (app1) -> db1
server1 (app2) -> db2
server1 (app3) -> db3

The most important and most used application connects to db1 and is 
running fine under apache and apache::dbi, but there are some smaller 
apps that we tried to bundle into this environment that need to 
connect to other servers running different database instances.

I don't want to eliminate apache::dbi and just use dbi. I don't want 
to get new machines to handle these smaller apps. I don't think I can 
have multiple instances of apache on a single Linux server, but am not sure.

I am thinking that I need to set up a standalone Soap Server running 
on another port to handle the connections to the other databases, 
without any sort of persistence, which for performance reasons would 
probably be okay.

Any experience on this matter, or any other design ideas?

Thanks.