Index: backend/src/main/resources/application.properties
===================================================================
--- backend/src/main/resources/application.properties	(revision cdcff72e9765342b84a5e4b5d98ca5cb050a5500)
+++ backend/src/main/resources/application.properties	(revision 48d2bedc68ea10341495edcd217325613e05065f)
@@ -1,12 +1,13 @@
 spring.application.name=medora
+server.port=8081
+spring.profiles.active=remote
+spring.config.import=optional:file:.env.properties
+
+spring.servlet.multipart.max-file-size=5MB
+spring.servlet.multipart.max-request-size=6MB
 
 # Spring Security - Development credentials
 spring.security.user.name=admin
-spring.security.user.password=admin123
-
-spring.datasource.url=jdbc:postgresql://localhost:5432/medora
-spring.datasource.username=medora_app
-spring.datasource.password=postgres
-spring.datasource.driver-class-name=org.postgresql.Driver
+spring.security.user.password=${DB_PASSWORD}
 
 # JWT Configuration
@@ -15,8 +16,18 @@
 
 # JPA / Hibernate settings
-spring.jpa.hibernate.ddl-auto=update
+spring.jpa.hibernate.ddl-auto=none
 spring.jpa.show-sql=true
+spring.jpa.open-in-view=true
 spring.jpa.properties.hibernate.format_sql=true
 spring.jpa.properties.hibernate.dialect=org.hibernate.dialect.PostgreSQLDialect
+
+# HikariCP connection pool settings
+spring.datasource.hikari.maximum-pool-size=20
+spring.datasource.hikari.minimum-idle=5
+spring.datasource.hikari.connection-timeout=20000
+spring.datasource.hikari.idle-timeout=300000
+spring.datasource.hikari.max-lifetime=1200000
+spring.datasource.hikari.auto-commit=true
+spring.datasource.hikari.leak-detection-threshold=60000
 
 # Jackson serialization settings