The invention discloses a database access method and apparatus. The database access method comprises the steps of receiving a user access request sent by a user side; according to the received user access request, sending a database access request to a database side in an NIO way; after it is confirmed that a data access request is sent successfully, generating a database access request task, and adding the task to a working queue, wherein the database access request task carries a current user access request identifier and a database access request identifier; and releasing a current processing thread. By applying the scheme, threads of an application server do not need to be occupied in a response time consumption stage of a database, so that practical business processing capability of the application server is not influenced due to thread exhausting, and CPU resources of the application server can be fully used for processing businesses.