I'm using Hibernate 3.1.2+annotations. The application is using the same Hibernate Configuration to access two or more schemas (e.g. three different data sources) at a time. The schemas are different databases on the same MySQL database server.

Currently I'm creating n Configurations (n=number of data sources used) and n Session Factories. This works fine but esentially multiplies the startup time by a factor of n.

Most time building the configuration/session factory is spent doing some parsing/reflection/cglib stuff. I'd imagine the gathered data could be cached/reused in other session factories (in the same VM) without much harm. Remember that my session factories are all the same except the data source.

Would that make sense ? That would actually end up as some sort of "SessionFactoryFactory"...