connect to the database

        **Return:**
            - ``dbConn`` -- the database connection

        See the class docstring for usage

def connect(self):
        """connect to the database

        **Return:**
            - ``dbConn`` -- the database connection

        See the class docstring for usage
        """
        self.log.debug('starting the ``get`` method')

        dbSettings = self.dbSettings

        port = False
        if "tunnel" in dbSettings and dbSettings["tunnel"]:
            port = self._setup_tunnel(
                tunnelParameters=dbSettings["tunnel"]
            )

        # SETUP A DATABASE CONNECTION
        host = dbSettings["host"]
        user = dbSettings["user"]
        passwd = dbSettings["password"]
        dbName = dbSettings["db"]
        dbConn = ms.connect(
            host=host,
            user=user,
            passwd=passwd,
            db=dbName,
            port=port,
            use_unicode=True,
            charset='utf8',
            local_infile=1,
            client_flag=ms.constants.CLIENT.MULTI_STATEMENTS,
            connect_timeout=36000,
            max_allowed_packet=51200000
        )
        if self.autocommit:
            dbConn.autocommit(True)

        self.log.debug('completed the ``get`` method')
        return dbConn