We made a prototype of an application using a swing application with hibernate connecting directly to the database.

Changes in the model (big one) are handled using saveorupdate of the full model -> hibernate modifies only the changed fields in the DB.

We're thinking about moving the application to a 3-tier (using JBOSS a middle tier; weblogic and websphere need to be supported). Is there an easy way handling the changes in the model using a 3 tier architecture -> without sending the full model and having a cache of it on the server ?

Somebody has an experience on using hibernate + JBOSS on large projects (do you have some hints on granularity?)

Cheer in advance and sorry for all these questions