What is Hibernate ORM (Object Relationship Mapping)?

What is Hibernate ORM in Java, it is an open source ORM (Object Relational Mapping) framework. Hibernate simplifies the development of java application to interact with the database.

1. What is Hibernate ORM in java does?

Java Hibernate ORM reside in persistence layer in classic modern layered based architecture. Java Hibernate ORM in turns maps as follows:

• database table to java POJO class
• database row to object
• database column to java property.

2. History of Java Hibernate framework

Initially, it was developed by Gaving King later contributed to opensource community, nowadays, maintained by RedHat.

1. Why Hibernate framework?

In initial development days, we do not have any ORM tool, few company having own proprietary tool or framework to use. The different band level (developer, manager, CXO) using Hibernate for different perspective having own thought level.

As Developer: It’s a niche technology and enjoyed and feel proud using Java Hibernate framework.
Project Manager: PM feels proud that his/her team members using the latest technology, so that team members will stay longer duration in the team and motivated by using Java Hibernate ORM framework. Because of the latest tech stacks, the development pace would be faster.

3. Architecture of Hibernate framework

Typically, there are 4 layers in Java Hibernate framework architecture:

1. Java application layer
2. Hibernate framework layer
3. Backend API layer and
4. Database layer

4. Advantages of Java Hibernate Framwork

There are many advantages of Java Hibernate ORM Framework, which I mentioned below.

• Opensource: Hibernate framework is open source under the LGPL license.
• Lightweight: Hibernate framework is lightweight ORM framework.
• Fast performance: The performance of the Java Hibernate framework is fast if you have an established a relationship between your business domain model. There are many reasons for fastness, there are many parameters to measure its fastness. In short, a few caches is internally used in the Hibernate framework. There are two types of cache in Java Hibernate framework, first-level cache, and second-level cache. The first level cache is enabled by default.
• Database Independent query: HQL (Hibernate Query Language) is the object-oriented version of SQL. It generates database-independent queries. So you don’t need to write database-specific queries. Before Hibernate, If the database is changed for the project, we need to change the SQL query as well which leads to the maintenance problem.
• Auto Generation of Schema: Java Hibernate framework provides the facility to create the tables of the database automatically. So there is no need to create tables in the database manually.
• Simplifies complex join: Developers are playing around object most of the time, so Hibernate provide us to build join on objects on which relationship need to established. To pull hierarchal data or to pull from multiple tables is easy in the Hibernate ORM framework.
• Provides query statistics and database status: Hibernate supports Query cache and provide statistics about query and database status.

I hope you enjoyed learning advantages of Hibernate framework.

5. Disadvantages of Hibernate Framework

I could not found any disadvantage in Hibernate especially usability perspective. But when you go for comparative study then obviously found few of them, which I tried to mention here.

• Batch: Usually Hibernate not suitable for batch type of application.
• Overhead: When you get habitual to use JDBC on that point in time you feel why should we add one extra layer. but adding one extra layer is not a pain using that appropriately is the game.
• if Relationship not proper: if your entity relationship is not established well then you can find your life hell. I observed sometimes in my life, my colleague removed Hibernate framework from his project by saying that its slow. I strongly recommend your entity relationship should be well established else you have to remove hibernater from your project when you push it into production. Its all about how you are going to use for which perspectiv, and how much you know i.e. how much depth you are comfortable in Hibernate Java.

I hope you enjoyed knowing of disadvantages of Hibernate framework. I would recommend you think your perspective of using Hibernate and aware of Hibernate disadvantage will add value to it.

6. Available Projects under Hibernate

In this section you came to know what are the feature and it modules available in Hibernate Framework. The following are the different projects or Modules under the umbrella of Java Hibernate ORM framework.

• Hibernate ORM : it provide domain model persistence for relational databases
• Hibernate Search:: Hibernate provide full-text search for your domain model
• Hibernate Validator: : Hibernate provide annotation based constraints for your domain model which you can use for validations.
• Hibernate OGN:This project is for domain model persistence for NoSQL datastores
• Hibernate Tool: This project provide us a Command line tools and IDE plugins for your Hibernate usages
• Hibernate Others: We like the symmetry, everything else is here

7. Conclusion about Hibernate framework

At glance, we can say we should use Hibernate, specially I enjoy by using Hibernate in more than 10 project which are very reliable projects. We strongly recommend to use based on the use case to use case, not for all.

8. Reference

You can visit Hibernate Official Site for more details.

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