JBoss has released Hibernate 3.2, the latest update to the company’s powerful, award-winning Java object/relational mapping software. By user demand, JBoss has simplified Hibernate packages to support the most popular development frameworks. Now, programmers have a single object/relational mapping and persistence solution to meet their complex development needs, whether with native Hibernate, JDK 5.0 (Java Developer Kit) annotations, the Java Persistence API, or full Enterprise JavaBeans 3.0 (EJB 3.0).

The most significant feature of Hibernate 3.2 is support for and certification with Java Persistence, which was introduced in the Java Enterprise Edition (EE) 5.0 platform to simplify the development of Java EE applications using data persistence. Java Persistence support and certification lays the groundwork for JBoss’ final EJB 3.0 implementation in the JBoss Java EE 5.0 application server. Hibernate can now also be used as a portable and pluggable Java Persistence provider with any Java EE 5.0 application server.

“Hibernate has always been about simplification and enhancing developer productivity, and that includes giving developers what they need to develop with in the manner that makes the most sense for their projects,” said Ram Venkataraman, director of product management, JBoss. “Java Persistence standardizes innovative data management features—many of which were pioneered in Hibernate, for the Java EE platform—with a powerful and simple programming model tightly integrated with EJB 3.0. Furthermore, the Hibernate software modules can be used in any combination and with any JDK, making Hibernate a perfect fit for any development and deployment environment.”

With this update, JBoss has delivered one of the most feature-rich and mature Java Persistence-compliant object/relational mapping software available, proving once again why Hibernate is a leader in its market. The Hibernate 3.2 release includes:

-- Hibernate Core is the full featured, high performance object/relational persistence and query service that popularized object/relational mapping for Java. Hibernate relieves developers from 95 percent of common data persistence related programming tasks, compared to manual coding with SQL and the JDBC API. Hibernate Core offers a powerful native data management and query API, and object/relational mapping with XML metadata. Hibernate Core requires JDK 1.3 or greater and works with any J2EE 1.4 or Java EE 5.0 application server.

-- Hibernate Annotations offers several packages of JDK 5.0 code annotations that developers can use to map classes, as a replacement or in addition to XML metadata. Hibernate Annotations supports standard Java Persistence object/relational mapping annotations, native Hibernate extension annotations, and declarative data integrity rule definition and validation with the Hibernate Validator framework. Hibernate Annotations requires JDK 5.0.

-- Hibernate EntityManager implements the Java Persistence programming interfaces, object lifecycle rules, and query options as defined by Java Specification Request 220 (EJB 3.0). Combined with Hibernate Annotations, this wrapper offers a complete Java Persistence provider on top of the mature and powerful Hibernate Core. The Hibernate Java Persistence provider is the default Java Persistence provider of the JBoss EJB 3.0 implementation. Additionally, it can be used inside any other Java EE 5.0 application server or standalone with JDK 5.0.

In addition to Java Persistence support and certification, new features in Hibernate 3.2 include:

-- Transparent and customizable persistence context management in any Java environment;

-- Highly scalable optimistic locking in a cluster with the new JBoss Cache provider;

-- Declarative data filters for transparent definition of dynamic data views; and

-- Enhanced query options and query language.

Licensed under the Gnu Lesser General Public License (LGPL), Hibernate is free to download and use. It is also currently bundled in the Red Hat Application Stack. For more information about Hibernate, visit http://hibernate.org or http://jboss.com/products/index.