# Starting Derby as an embedded database

To start Derby, you start the Derby JDBC driver. Starting the Derby driver starts up the complete Derby system within the current JVM.

For example, when using the JBDC driver manager directly within Java code, you typically start a JDBC driver in one of these ways:

- Specify the jdbc.drivers system property, which allows users to customize the JDBC drivers used by their applications. For example:

      java -Djdbc.drivers=org.apache.derby.jdbc.EmbeddedDriver applicationClass

- Load the class directly from Java code using the static method Class.forName. For example:

      Class.forName("org.apache.derby.jdbc.EmbeddedDriver");

- If your application runs on JDK 1.6 or higher, then you do not need to explicitlty load the EmbeddedDriver. In that environment, the driver loads automatically and the engine starts when your application requests its first Connection.

For more details, see "java.sql.Driver" in the Java DB Reference Manual.

Once the Derby JDBC driver class has been loaded, you can connect to any Derby database by passing the embedded connection URL with the appropriate attributes to the DriverManager.getConnection method.

For example:

    Connection conn = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:derby:sample");

Parent topic: Derby embedded basics
Related concepts
Embedded Derby JDBC driver
Getting a nested connection
Related reference
Embedded Derby JDBC database connection URL