Thanks a lot jaikiran, I solved my problem. The ClassCastException with HibernatePersistence class was due to the ejb3-persistence.jar present in my ear lib which is already loaded by the parent class loader. Then I got the hibernate-search conflict like you explained in your thread. Adding hibernate-search.jar and lucene-core.jar in the ear lib solved the problem. I also have to mention that hibernate entity manager 3.3.2 is only working with hibernate annotation 3.3.1 not 3.3.0 (the hibernate compatibility matrix is mentioning compatibility with versions 3.3.x). Thanks again for your involvement. Michael View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4205816#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...