Reasons for still using the Spring/Hibernate combination even after the advent of EBJ 3.x

[Cor Takken]

I am very curious about your visions on the subject whether we should still use the "old" world combination of Spring and Hibernate after the advent of EJB 3.x. I can still see reasons to use them in a stand alone situation, but now that EJB 3.x has arrived with all the added value of using annotations to request injections from the container, is there still any advantages in using the Spring part of the equation?

Hoping to hear from you,

[Ahmad Reza Seddighi]

Yes. With the combination of Spring and Hibernate we do not need the container, and as the result the development, test, and maintenance will speed up and be easier. Additionally, we can use many Spring services including IoC, AOP, and Security and still use the Hibernate JPA implementation to follow the EJB 3.x standard!

[Anil Vupputuri]

Hi Ahmad,

Is it correct to say Hibernate JPA implementation to follow EJB 3.x standard require JEE container?

But do we need JEE container if you just follow Hibernate JPA implementation for standalone application?

Thanks.

[Jaikiran Pai]

Anil Vupputuri wrote:

But do we need JEE container if you just follow Hibernate JPA implementation for standalone application?

You won't require an application server for using a JPA implementation (like Hibernate) for standalone application.

[Vyas Sanzgiri]

I can run Spring + Hibernate in Tomcat and that is a big plus for me! I do not get into the complexities of an app server :-)

[Cor Takken]

Okay,

Ahmed: You bring forward that Spring allows you to use IoC, AOP and Security. This however is now available through EJB3.0 as well (at least in a server environment). You can have the container inject resources, ejbs and loads of other stuff thereby effectively (in my view) establishing an IoC (or at least very near) situation. One has to keep in mind that IoC is a means to an end, not the goal. Security in a server environment can be established using JAAS; I am still trying to find the hooks into AOP. Here I have to conclude that my question has not be answered to the full yet.

Again: in a stand-alone situation Spring acts as the application container offering these services and that is very useful, my question was about Spring in a webserver. Which brings me to the following.
Vyaz: Aren't you just replacing the complexities of a webcontainer with the complexities of configuration in Spring? I can fully understand the choice in certain sitations.

Anyway, I am still very curious about an answer to my original question.

Cor