Getting Database connection in pure JPA setup

If you are using JAVA EE 5.0, the best way to do this is to use the @Resource annotation to inject the datasource in an attribute of a class (for instance an EJB) to hold the datasource resource (for instance an Oracle datasource) for the legacy reporting tool, this way:

@Resource(mappedName="jdbc:/OracleDefaultDS") DataSource datasource;

Later you can obtain the connection, and pass it to the legacy reporting tool in this way:

Connection conn = dataSource.getConnection();

As per the hibernate docs here,

Connection connection()

Deprecated. (scheduled for removal in 4.x). Replacement depends on need; for doing direct JDBC stuff use doWork(org.hibernate.jdbc.Work) ...

Use Hibernate Work API instead:

Session session = entityManager.unwrap(Session.class);
session.doWork(new Work() {

    @Override
    public void execute(Connection connection) throws SQLException {
        // do whatever you need to do with the connection
    }
});

Where you want to get that connection is unclear. One possibility would be to get it from the underlying Hibernate Session used by the EntityManager. With JPA 1.0, you'll have to do something like this:

Session session = (Session)em.getDelegate();
Connection conn = session.connection();

Note that the getDelegate() is not portable, the result of this method is implementation specific: the above code works in JBoss, for GlassFish you'd have to adapt it - have a look at Be careful while using EntityManager.getDelegate().

In JPA 2.0, things are a bit better and you can do the following:

Connection conn = em.unwrap(Session.class).connection();

If you are running inside a container, you could also perform a lookup on the configured DataSource.

if you use EclipseLink: You should be in a JPA transaction to access the Connection

entityManager.getTransaction().begin();
java.sql.Connection connection = entityManager.unwrap(java.sql.Connection.class);
...
entityManager.getTransaction().commit();