diff --git a/src/Symfony/Bundle/DoctrineBundle/DependencyInjection/Configuration.php b/src/Symfony/Bundle/DoctrineBundle/DependencyInjection/Configuration.php
index 6b15c3d25ad7..5fa370a03206 100644
--- a/src/Symfony/Bundle/DoctrineBundle/DependencyInjection/Configuration.php
+++ b/src/Symfony/Bundle/DoctrineBundle/DependencyInjection/Configuration.php
@@ -58,6 +58,22 @@ private function addDbalSection(ArrayNodeDefinition $node)
         $node
             ->children()
             ->arrayNode('dbal')
+                ->beforeNormalization()
+                    ->ifTrue(function ($v) { return is_array($v) && !array_key_exists('connections', $v) && !array_key_exists('connection', $v); })
+                    ->then(function ($v) {
+                        $connection = array();
+                        foreach (array('dbname', 'host', 'port', 'user', 'password', 'driver', 'driver_class', 'options', 'path', 'memory', 'unix_socket', 'wrapper_class', 'platform_service', 'charset', 'logging') as $key) {
+                            if (array_key_exists($key, $v)) {
+                                $connection[$key] = $v[$key];
+                                unset($v[$key]);
+                            }
+                        }
+                        $v['default_connection'] = isset($v['default_connection']) ? (string) $v['default_connection'] : 'default';
+                        $v['connections'] = array($v['default_connection'] => $connection);
+
+                        return $v;
+                    })
+                ->end()
                 ->children()
                     ->scalarNode('default_connection')->end()
                 ->end()
diff --git a/src/Symfony/Bundle/DoctrineBundle/Tests/DependencyInjection/Fixtures/config/xml/dbal_service_single_connection.xml b/src/Symfony/Bundle/DoctrineBundle/Tests/DependencyInjection/Fixtures/config/xml/dbal_service_single_connection.xml
index fa6392e192ba..a8ec0bd79f7a 100644
--- a/src/Symfony/Bundle/DoctrineBundle/Tests/DependencyInjection/Fixtures/config/xml/dbal_service_single_connection.xml
+++ b/src/Symfony/Bundle/DoctrineBundle/Tests/DependencyInjection/Fixtures/config/xml/dbal_service_single_connection.xml
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@
                         http://symfony.com/schema/dic/doctrine http://symfony.com/schema/dic/doctrine/doctrine-1.0.xsd">
 
     <config>
-        <dbal default-connection="mysql">
+        <dbal>
             <connection
                 name="mysql"
                 dbname="mysql_db"
diff --git a/src/Symfony/Bundle/DoctrineBundle/Tests/DependencyInjection/Fixtures/config/yml/dbal_service_single_connection.yml b/src/Symfony/Bundle/DoctrineBundle/Tests/DependencyInjection/Fixtures/config/yml/dbal_service_single_connection.yml
index 1b15fc376e90..9db7c3701640 100644
--- a/src/Symfony/Bundle/DoctrineBundle/Tests/DependencyInjection/Fixtures/config/yml/dbal_service_single_connection.yml
+++ b/src/Symfony/Bundle/DoctrineBundle/Tests/DependencyInjection/Fixtures/config/yml/dbal_service_single_connection.yml
@@ -1,9 +1,6 @@
 doctrine:
     dbal:
-        default_connection: mysql
-        connections:
-            mysql:
-                dbname: mysql_db
-                user: mysql_user
-                password: mysql_s3cr3t
-                unix_socket: /path/to/mysqld.sock
+        dbname: mysql_db
+        user: mysql_user
+        password: mysql_s3cr3t
+        unix_socket: /path/to/mysqld.sock