tomcat startup/shutdown hook?

[Martin Rehfeld <mr...@Adobe.COM>]

I am using tomcat/servlets together with an SQL-dataase. Have written an 
environment with its own (static) database session management. Once a 
database session is opened it will be reused by subsequent db access 
requests.

Question: Is there a mechanism where I can hook into tomcat on
startup - check if db is ok, init session, .... If this fails, I have to 
set a state.
shutdown - close all opened sessions (I could use a timeout but that 
could cause other problems).

Thanx in advance,
Martin