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Originally published July 2010 [ Publisher Link ]
Optimizing JPA Performance: An EclipseLink, Hibernate, and OpenJPA Comparison
'Impedance mismatch'. No two words encompass the troubles, headaches and quirks most developers face when attempting to link applications to relational databases (RDBMS). But lets face it, object orientated designs aren't going away anytime soon from mainstream languages and neither are the relational storage systems used in most applications. One side works with objects, while the other with tables. Resolving these differences -- or as its technically referred to 'object/relational impedance mismatch' -- can result in substantial overhead, which in turn can materialize into poor application performance.
In Java, the Java Persistence API (JPA) is one of the most popular mechanisms used to bridge the gap between objects (i.e. the Java language) and tables (i.e. relational databases). Though there are other mechanisms that allow Java applications to interact with relational databases -- such as JDBC and JDO -- JPA has gained wider adoption due to its underpinnings: Object Relational Mapping (ORM). ORM's gain in popularity is due precisely to it being specifically designed to address the interaction between object and tables.
In the case of JPA, there is a standard body charged with setting its course, a process which has given way to several JPA implementations, among the three most popular you will find: EclipseLink (evolved from TopLink), Hibernate and OpenJPA. But even though all three are based on the same standard, ORM being such a deep and complex topic, beyond core functionality each implementation has differences ranging from configuration to optimization techniques.
Since this article provides an extensive side by side comparison of JPA implementations and their performance metrics, you can continue reading this article at the original publication URL at DZone, here: http://java.dzone.com/articles/jpa-performance-optimization .