Hibernate is the Open Source Persistence technology, maps the Java classes to the database tables. Hibernate is the feature of many computer operating systems which continuously innovates java applications. It provides the data query and retrieval facilities that considerably reduce the time for development. Hibernates is mainly applicable with business logic and object-oriented domain modes in the Java-based middle-tier applications. It could be applied in applications as Java Swing applications, J2EE applications using EJB session beans or Java Servlet-based applications. Hibernate is database independent and it has easy readability. Hibernate makes development faster. The latest version is Hibernate 3.0 which is Open Source Persistence technology.

Features of Hibernate 3.0

In Hibernate 3.0 there are different query facilities that are HQL (Hibernate Query Language), the Hibernate Criteria Query Application Programing Interface, and it also have support for queries which are written in native SQL dialect of the database.

Run time performance can be monitored through JMX (Java Management Extensions) or local Java Application Programing Interface

Eclipse support, including a suite of Eclipse plug-ins for working with Hibernate 3.0, including mapping editor, schema reverse engineering tool and interactive query prototyping,.

Hibernate can be used to develop and distribute the applications for free under LGPL which allows the use of hibernate in commercial projects.

Hibernate can be used with clustered environments due to its dual-layer architecture.it also helps to enhance its performance and scalability.

Hibernate lessens the development time as it supports the object oriented concepts like inheritance, polymorphism,it also supports the the Java Collection framework and composition.

In database we don’t need to generate unique key separately as Hibernate supports for the automatic unique key generations.

Hibernate3 supports persistence operations like merge() and create() which are used in EJB3 almost similar to saveOrUpdateCopy() and saveOrUpdate() operations in hibernate. As the methods of session interface hibernate3 supports all theses methods.

In Hibernate Data can be represented as XML(Extensible Markup Language) and POJOs ( Plain Old Java Object ) interchangeably with Hibernate XML binding

In the expensive development process in implementing EJB applications or developing a highly persistence frame work, Hibernate 3.0 certainly can be a supplement to your tedious tasks.