This is an hibernate problem, not a portal problem... may be look on hibernate forum (no need to post : easy problem, you 'll find an answer yet in the forum). globally : the portal is in JBoss the access to DB is done with "usual" j2ee features... not really in the portal. look at the user portlet, and all the portlet that manage the identity (user, roles, etc...). it is a good example how to get all this in a portlet. (and the portlet/portal does not really care of that... it is more a hibernate/j2ee feature...) just think of adding the "transaction" in your portlet definition (jboss-portlet.xml). this to provide a transaction injection for all the portlet sub process... this may not be requiered if you use ejb (ejb3...). but it is a "classic" problem when starting with portlets and DB. see the way the definition of user portlet, cms portlet... are done in the portal... View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4107973#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...