So somebody pointed me to JDO. It seems to be a good replacement for our DAO layer. Map your objects to a DB without too much complexity. But I'm quite hesitant: will it solve our performance problems? Will it be as easy to convert our application as it looks? Even worse: if we decide to go for JDO, do we need Sun's JDO spec, or is Castor's better? Sun's spec doesn't seem to have a free implementation, which makes it riskier to invest in that option. I've heard a lot of good of Castor, but it was about it's XML serialization. Are they as good in O/R mapping? I'm looking into it, but real-life experience would be very welcome. I'm kind of searching around in the dark, with a flashlight that only reveals positive points.[Feelings and Thoughts]