How to test JDBC thin client connections?

How can I test the connections between a JDBC thin client and database?

Is there a simple test to test the connections between a JDBC thin client to the database (on a database server). Because there is no Oracle Client on the Client PC, I can't use tnsping or sqlplus to test the connection. How to I test this connection? Thanks

/*
* This sample shows how to list all the names from the EMP table
*
* It uses the JDBC THIN driver. See the same program in the
* oci8 samples directory to see how to use the other drivers.
*/

// You need to import the java.sql package to use JDBC
import java.sql.*;

class Employee
{
public static void main (String args [])
throws SQLException
{
// Load the Oracle JDBC driver
DriverManager.registerDriver(new oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver());

// Connect to the database
// You must put a database name after the @ sign in the connection URL.
// You can use either the fully specified SQL*net syntax or a short cut
// syntax as ::. The example uses the short cut syntax.
Connection conn =
DriverManager.getConnection ("jdbc:oracle:thin:@dlsun511:1721:dbms733",
"scott", "tiger");

// Create a Statement
Statement stmt = conn.createStatement ();

// Select the ENAME column from the EMP table
ResultSet rset = stmt.executeQuery ("select ENAME from EMP");

// Iterate through the result and print the employee names
while (rset.next ())
System.out.println (rset.getString (1));
}
}

Thanks for this info. We have something similar to this, but if the connection fails to the database it just errors with:
Cannot connect to DBstore ("jdbc:oracle:thin:@dlsun511:1721:dbms733",
"scott", "tiger");

We wanted a test to give a error like an ORA or TNS error number. Or something like tnsping or sqlplus. We wanted to do this test without loading Oracle Client. Is this the only solution?