Is it wise to keep the HttpUrlConnection open indefinitely until the remote REST endpoint?

I want to optimize a process that runs constantly and makes frequent calls (> 1 per second) to an external API via a simple REST style HTTP post. One thing I noticed is that currently the HttpUrlConnection is created and closed for every API call according to the following structure (unnecessary code and error handling removed for readability).

//every API call
try {
  URL url = new URL("..remote_site..");
  conn = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
  setupConnectionOptions(conn); //sets things like timeoout and usecaches false
  outputWriter = new OutputStreamWriter(new BufferedOutputStream(conn.getOutputStream()));
  //send request
} finally {
  conn.disconnect();
  outputWriter.close();
}

      

        
        
        
      

    

I don't have much experience with the http protocol directly, but based on common sense / knowledge of sockets in general it seems that it would be much more efficient to only create the connection once and reuse it, and only re-initialize it on issue to avoid negotiating the connection every time, for example:

//on startup, or error
private void initializeConnection()
{
  URL url = new URL("..remote_site..");
  conn = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
  setupConnectionOptions(conn); //sets things like timeoout and usecaches false
}

//per request
try {
  outputWriter = new OutputStreamWriter(new BufferedOutputStream(conn.getOutputStream()));
  //send request
} catch (IOException) {
  try conn.disconnect();
  initializeConnection();
} finally {
  outputWriter.close();
}

//on graceful exit
conn.disconnect();

      

        
        
        
      

    

My questions:

• is this a reasonable optimization in general (will the speed increase be noticeable)?

Assuming yes:

• should the output stream and connection be reused?
• Is it wise to re-initialize the connection on error, or should I do this after a certain number of requests / time?