Hibernate without Java EE 6

Question

I have Websphere 7 server, and it don't support JPA 2.0. So I can't run on WAS 7 JPA 2.0 applications.

But I'm wondering how Spring users run Hibernate on Tomcat or Jetty? This servlet-containers also (as WAS 7) doesn't support Java EE 6.

So it's mean that I can run Hibernate on WAS 7 with the same results as on the Tomcat or Jetty?.

If yes, what are benefits of using app-servers for JPA? Why all developers don't use servlet-containers instead app-servers?

Also I heard about "container-managed" stuff, that allows some additional features and functionality. So it's mean that many developers (who uses Spring on Jetty and Tomcat) don't get benefits of using container-managed features of app-servers?

P.S. I know about available Feature Pack patch for WAS 7 for JPA 2.0 support, but question not about it.

Answer 1

You can bring in a lot of functionality by including the appropriate jars in your WEB-INF/lib folder, but then the servlet container cannot help you in any way with the functionality, and it will most likely not be well integrated with the functionalty actually provided by the container. A typical example is bringing your own JSF 2.0 libraries.

The real advantages of using implementations in the container, is that the container can then help with clustering across multiple hosts, providing JDBC connection pools, etc.

So, you need to be more careful when including e.g. Hibernate yourself, and do all the configuration inside your own deployment, but it can be done.