Hibernate L2 Cache with Spring Boot

What You Will Learn

How to configure Infinispan as the Hibernate second-level cache in a Spring Boot application using application.properties, and verify cache behavior through Hibernate statistics.

Prerequisites

Java 17+
Spring Boot

Step 1: Add Dependencies

Add Spring Boot Data JPA and the Infinispan Hibernate cache module to your pom.xml:

<dependency>
   <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
   <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-jpa</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
   <groupId>org.infinispan</groupId>
   <artifactId>infinispan-hibernate-cache-v66</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
   <groupId>com.h2database</groupId>
   <artifactId>h2</artifactId>
</dependency>

Step 2: Configure Hibernate Caching in application.properties

Enable the second-level cache and query cache via Spring Boot properties:

# Enable those entities marked with @Cacheable to be cached
spring.jpa.properties.javax.persistence.sharedCache.mode=ENABLE_SELECTIVE
# Enables second level cache
spring.jpa.properties.hibernate.cache.use_second_level_cache=true
# Enable query cache
spring.jpa.properties.hibernate.cache.use_query_cache=true

# Use Infinispan second level cache provider
spring.jpa.properties.hibernate.cache.region.factory_class=infinispan
# Force using local configuration when only using a single node.
# Otherwise a clustered configuration is loaded.
spring.jpa.properties.hibernate.cache.infinispan.cfg=org/infinispan/hibernate/cache/commons/builder/infinispan-configs-local.xml

# Entity specific configuration, e.g. via property:
#   hibernate.cache.infinispan.<Entity FQN>.expiration.max_idle
spring.jpa.properties.hibernate.cache.infinispan.org.infinispan.tutorial.simple.hibernate.cache.spring.local.model.Person.expiration.max_idle=1000

# Generate statistics to see effects of second level cache
spring.jpa.properties.hibernate.generate_statistics=true

Step 3: Mark Entities as Cacheable

Annotate your JPA entities with @Cacheable:

@Entity
@Cacheable
public class Event {

   @Id
   @GeneratedValue
   private Long id;

   private String name;

   private LocalDateTime timestamp = LocalDateTime.now();

Step 4: Run Cache Operations from a CommandLineRunner

The Spring Boot application uses a CommandLineRunner to demonstrate cache behavior:

@SpringBootApplication
public class InfinispanHibernateCacheSpringLocal {

   private static final Logger log = LoggerFactory.getLogger(InfinispanHibernateCacheSpringLocal.class);

   @Autowired
   private EntityManagerFactory emf;

   @Bean
   public CommandLineRunner demo() {

Step 5: Run the Tutorial

mvn spring-boot:run

The output shows cache puts, hits, misses, and query cache statistics, confirming Infinispan is serving as the L2 cache provider.

What’s Next

Hibernate L2 cache standalone for the same pattern without Spring
Hibernate L2 cache with WildFly for a Jakarta EE deployment