Every bound persistent POJO class is an entity bean and is declared using the @Entity annotation (at the class level):

@Entity
public class Flight implements Serializable {
    Long id;

    @Id
    public Long getId() { return id; }

    public void setId(Long id) { this.id = id; }
}
         

@Entity declares the class as an entity bean (i.e. a persistent POJO class), @Id declares the identifier property of this entity bean. The other mapping declarations are implicit. This configuration by exception concept is central to the new EJB3 specification and a major improvement. The class Flight is mapped to the Flight table, using the column id as its primary key column.

Depending on whether you annotate fields or methods, the access type used by Hibernate will be field or property. The EJB3 spec requires that you declare annotations on the element type that will be accessed, i.e. the getter method if you use property access, the field if you use field access. Mixing EJB3 annotations in both fields and methods should be avoided. Hibernate will guess the access type from the position of @Id or @EmbeddedId.