Hibernate Introduction

Hibernate is the most popular Object Relational Mapping (ORM) library available for Java. Hibernate is used to map and manage the application domain object model in sync with the underlying relation model. It is provided by JBoss and it is one of the oldest ORM implementation available for Java.

Using an Object Relational Mapping library improves the application development process and runtime handling in many aspects. To handle the communication between the Object Domain model (Classes/Objects) and Relational Model (Table/Records), we would be wasting a lot of time in writing boiler plate template code. To ensure a seamless communication with robust implementation and good performance, it is better to embrace an already available ORM like Hibernate.

If we write our own implementation for mapping between domain and relation model, the API needs a lot of work to be mature enough in comparison to what is already available in the market. Hibernate isn’t the only library available ORM implementation. There are many other ORM libraries available for Java like Cayenne, EclipseLink , iBatis/MyBatis, TopLink. Hibernate is generally considered leading OR library.

This is the first tutorial for Hibernate in JavaPapers. I am planning a Hibernate tutorial series. As always, I expect your support and feed back for this Hibernate tutorials. This tutorial will help you to start with Hibernate, install, configure and use ORM in an efficient way in your Java applications. This complete Hiberate tutorial series is planned based on Hibernate version 4.x and I will keep upgrading it as every Hibernate version is launched.