Is there a definition anywhere of the differences between the caching provided by a Hibernate Session and caching provided by a 'Second Level Cache' provider such as OSCache, SwarmCache, TreeCache etc)

Is the 'Second Level Cache' the same for Hibernate as a Level 2 cache is for a CPU (for example) ?

Thanks,
Kevin Hooke

[This post does not relect the opinions of my Employer or it's clients in any way]

hibernate session is a unit bsiness cache, only to be used by ONE thread.
Second level cache as EHCache can be used by multiple hibernate session for example.
Hibernate sessions will hit the cache before hitting the database (all is done implicitly).
Second level cache is a good way to improve performance if you app has exclusive access to the db.