Versions prior to 5.3 are not under active development any more so there are no plans to change those versions.

In 5.3, hibernate.connection.acquisition_mode and hibernate.connection.release_mode are deprecated; hibernate.connection.handling_mode should be used instead.

It appears that hibernate.connection.handling_mode has not been documented in the 5.3 user guide.

Here is my understanding from looking at the code:

• default for a provided connection is to acquire the connection immediately when a session is open, and hold the connection until the session is closed;
• default for a non-provided JDBC resource local is it to acquire the connection when needed, and release after transaction;
• default for JTA is to acquire the connection when needed, and release after statement.

Vlad Mihalcea, please confirm this and update the user manual with this information.