Tell Hibernate in your SessionFactory configuration that you want to use JBoss Cache 2 as your Second Level Cache implementation:

hibernate.cache.region.factory_class=
   org.hibernate.cache.jbc2.MultiplexedJBossCacheRegionFactory

There are a number of values that can be provided for the hibernate.cache.region.factory_class property, depending on how you want the JBoss Cache integration to work. Based on what factory class you specify, there are additional detail configuration properties you can add to further control that factory. However, simply specifying the MultiplexedJBossCacheRegionFactory shown above provides a reasonable set of default values useful for many applications. See Section 3.1.2, “Specifying the RegionFactory Implementation” for more details.

Do not set the legacy hibernate.cache.provider_class property when using JBoss Cache 2. That is a legacy property from before Hibernate 3.3's redesign of second level caching internals. It will not work with JBoss Cache 2.

Tell Hibernate you want to enable caching of entities and collections. No need to set this property if you don't:

hibernate.cache.use_second_level_cache=true

Tell Hibernate you want to enable caching of query results. No need to set this property if you don't:

hibernate.cache.use_query_cache=true

If you have enabled caching of query results, tell Hibernate if you want to suppress costly replication of those results around the cluster. No need to set this property if you want query results replicated:

hibernate.cache.region.jbc2.query.localonly=true