I think I want hibernate to talk to DBCP or C3PO. The pool has the information about my database type and login information, so it seems like I should only need to tell hibernate the JNDI name corresponding to the pool (and maybe my database dialect).

Do I want user- or hibernate-provided JDBC? I don't think the docs make it clear how to choose or what exactly to do to the hibernate configuration once I've chosen.

Thanks.

what is the question ?

it's up to you to decide what is best for you app.
hibernate just provide the options of either doing some of the boring work with connection handling or let you do the boring work.

nothing else to it.