Hello everybody,

I was wondering if there was a way to optimize the initialization of the session factory. My database is quite large (maybe 300 tables) and it takes an average 2 minutes to complete.

Could I serialize the session factory? Should I upgrade to Hibernate 3? Is there some tuning to do in order to skip schema mapping validation? Any clues welcome.

Hibernate version: 2.1.8

Name and version of the database you are using: Oracle 10g

SessionFactory implements Serializable, so you should be able to save it - I was contemplating doing just that, but did not try it yet.

What discouraged me was the fact that I would have to watch not only for changes in all my mapping files, BUT also for any object implementation file changes - SessionFactory uses CGLIB to generate code from your persistent classes.
Hence, optimizing the load by serialization would not help me much during development, and in production, the startup time is less of an issue.

Your other options are:
- Use multiple session factories - each covering a different portion of your schema - if possible (granted, more things to worry about)

- Perform SessionFactory initialization in a background thread, so that (while SessionFactory intializes), you can build your UI and other 'stuff'.

For example, we have a separate SessionFactory (well, and sometimes database) for authentication - so while the user is coping with the login, we can happily initialize our BIG SessionFactory (using a lower-priority thread).

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Just wondering if you had any success in serializing session factory?

Thanks.