Java Persistence API
The Java Persistence API (JPA) is a specification of Java and it is a standard technology. It is used to persist data between Java object and relational database. JPA acts as a bridge between object-oriented domain models and relational database systems. As JPA is just a specification, it doesn't perform any operation by itself. By itself, JPA is not a tool or framework; rather, it defines a set of concepts that can be implemented by any tool or framework. While JPA's object-relational mapping (ORM) model was originally based on Hibernate, it has since evolved.
JPA vs Hibernate
JPA is a standard, while Hibernate is not. In hibernate, we use Session for handling the persistence of data, while in JPA, we use Entity Manager. The query language in Hibernate is Hibernate Query language, while in JPA, the query language is Java Persistence query language. Hibernate is one of the most JPA providers.
Spring Data JPA
Spring Data JPA, part of the larger Spring Data family, makes it easy to easily implement JPA based repositories. This module deals with enhanced support for JPA based data access layers. It makes it easier to build Spring-powered applications that use data access technologies.
It provides the following key dependencies:
- Hibernate: One of the most popular JPA implementations.
- Spring Data JPA: Helps you to implement JPA-based repositories.
- Spring ORM: Core ORM support from the Spring Framework.
Jakarta Persistence
Jakarta Persistence defines a standard for management of persistence and object/relational mapping in Java(R) environments.
Connection Pools
A connection pool is a cache of database connections maintained so that the connections can be reused when future requests to the database are required. Connection pools are used to enhance the performance of executing commands on a database. Opening and maintaining a database connection for each user, especially requests made to a dynamic database-driven website application, is costly and wastes resources. In connection pooling, after a connection is created, it is placed in the pool and it is used again so that a new connection does not have to be established. If all the connections are being used, a new connection is made and is added to the pool. Connection pooling also cuts down on the amount of time a user must wait to establish a connection to the database.
HikariCP
HikariCP is a very lightweight (at roughly 130Kb) and lightning-fast JDBC connection pooling framework developed by Brett Wooldridge around 2012. It is a default in SpringBoot.