The execution of this plugin's mojo can be bound to a phase of build lifecycle. Use the dependencies in plugin to specify the artifact that has your JDBC driver.
<project> [...] <build> [...] <plugins> [...] <plugin> <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId> <artifactId>dbunit-maven-plugin</artifactId> <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version> <!--jar file that has the jdbc driver --> <dependencies> <dependency> <groupId></groupId> <artifactId></artifactId> <version></version> </dependency> </dependencies> <!-- common configurations --> <configuration> <driver></driver> <url></url> <username></username> <password><password> [....] </configuration> </executions> <execution> <phase></phase> <goals> <goal></goal> </goals> <!-- specific configurations --> <configuration> [...] </configuration> </execution> <execution> <phase></phase> <goals> <goal></goal> </goals> <!-- specific configurations --> <configuration> [...] </configuration> </execution> [...] </executions> [...] </plugin> [...] </plugins> [...] </build> [...] </project>