I have scoured the internet for a decent answer, but have not had much luck in doing so. I have an upcoming data migration project in which data created in one version of an application will need to be imported/migrated to a new schema. My supervisor wants to read the source data using JDBC, and then use Hibernate to persist the data in the new schema. My approach does not involve Hibernate at all. One specific example of a migration is converting a "Table of Contents" which is logically a tree, but not so physically (no Parent ID column), and so I have to calculate that as I process each row. Also, I am doing identity inserts whereas "the powers that be" want to use Hibernate to generate new keys, and still maintain the structure. I like Hibernate, but I just don't feel like there's any benefit in using it for this purpose. As a matter of fact, I feel like it's adding unnecessary complexity. I'd like to hear the pros and cons of each approach and maybe even a vote as to which approach you would take. Thanks!