It is possible to use the eXo hibernate service and register your hibernate hbm.xml files to leverage some add-on features of the service such as the table automatic creation as well as the cache of the hibernate session in a ThreadLocal object during all the request lifecycle. To do so, you just have to add a plugin and indicate the location of your files.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>

<configuration>

  <external-component-plugins>

    <target-component>org.exoplatform.services.database.HibernateService</target-component>

    <component-plugin> 

      <name>add.hibernate.mapping</name>

      <set-method>addPlugin</set-method>

      <type>org.exoplatform.services.database.impl.AddHibernateMappingPlugin</type>

      <init-params>

        <values-param>

          <name>hibernate.mapping</name>

          <value>org/exoplatform/services/organization/impl/UserImpl.hbm.xml</value>

          <value>org/exoplatform/services/organization/impl/MembershipImpl.hbm.xml</value>

          <value>org/exoplatform/services/organization/impl/GroupImpl.hbm.xml</value>

          <value>org/exoplatform/services/organization/impl/MembershipTypeImpl.hbm.xml</value>

          <value>org/exoplatform/services/organization/impl/UserProfileData.hbm.xml</value>

        </values-param>

      </init-params>

    </component-plugin>

  </external-component-plugins>  

</configuration>