I had the exact same problem before and managed to solve it.
Apache requires an extra configuration step for jdbc-msql.
Firstly, make sure that you have the correct GRANT permissions set up for your SQL database.
Next, follow his solution which is taken from: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/connector-j-usagenotes-j2ee.html#connector-j-usagenotes-tomcat
First, install the .jar file that comes with Connector/J in $CATALINA_HOME/common/lib so that it is available to all applications installed in the container.
Next, Configure the JNDI DataSource by adding a declaration resource to $CATALINA_HOME/conf/server.xml in the context that defines your web application:
<Context ....>
...
<Resource name="jdbc/MySQLDB"
auth="Container"
type="javax.sql.DataSource"/>
<!-- The name you used above, must match _exactly_ here!
The connection pool will be bound into JNDI with the name
"java:/comp/env/jdbc/MySQLDB"
-->
<ResourceParams name="jdbc/MySQLDB">
<parameter>
<name>factory</name>
<value>org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSourceFactory</value>
</parameter>
<!-- Don't set this any higher than max_connections on your
MySQL server, usually this should be a 10 or a few 10's
of connections, not hundreds or thousands -->
<parameter>
<name>maxActive</name>
<value>10</value>
</parameter>
<!-- You don't want to many idle connections hanging around
if you can avoid it, only enough to soak up a spike in
the load -->
<parameter>
<name>maxIdle</name>
<value>5</value>
</parameter>
<!-- Don't use autoReconnect=true, it's going away eventually
and it's a crutch for older connection pools that couldn't
test connections. You need to decide whether your application
is supposed to deal with SQLExceptions (hint, it should), and
how much of a performance penalty you're willing to pay
to ensure 'freshness' of the connection -->
<parameter>
<name>validationQuery</name>
<value>SELECT 1</value> <-- See discussion below for update to this option -->
</parameter>
<!-- The most conservative approach is to test connections
before they're given to your application. For most applications
this is okay, the query used above is very small and takes
no real server resources to process, other than the time used
to traverse the network.
If you have a high-load application you'll need to rely on
something else. -->
<parameter>
<name>testOnBorrow</name>
<value>true</value>
</parameter>
<!-- Otherwise, or in addition to testOnBorrow, you can test
while connections are sitting idle -->
<parameter>
<name>testWhileIdle</name>
<value>true</value>
</parameter>
<!-- You have to set this value, otherwise even though
you've asked connections to be tested while idle,
the idle evicter thread will never run -->
<parameter>
<name>timeBetweenEvictionRunsMillis</name>
<value>10000</value>
</parameter>
<!-- Don't allow connections to hang out idle too long,
never longer than what wait_timeout is set to on the
server...A few minutes or even fraction of a minute
is sometimes okay here, it depends on your application
and how much spikey load it will see -->
<parameter>
<name>minEvictableIdleTimeMillis</name>
<value>60000</value>
</parameter>
<!-- Username and password used when connecting to MySQL -->
<parameter>
<name>username</name>
<value>someuser</value>
</parameter>
<parameter>
<name>password</name>
<value>somepass</value>
</parameter>
<!-- Class name for the Connector/J driver -->
<parameter>
<name>driverClassName</name>
<value>com.mysql.jdbc.Driver</value>
</parameter>
<!-- The JDBC connection url for connecting to MySQL, notice
that if you want to pass any other MySQL-specific parameters
you should pass them here in the URL, setting them using the
parameter tags above will have no effect, you will also
need to use & to separate parameter values as the
ampersand is a reserved character in XML -->
<parameter>
<name>url</name>
<value>jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/test</value>
</parameter>
