Session session = sessionFactory.openSession(); Transaction tx = session.beginTransaction(); ScrollableResults customers = session.getNamedQuery("GetCustomers") .setCacheMode(CacheMode.IGNORE) .scroll(ScrollMode.FORWARD_ONLY); int count=0; while ( customers.next() ) { Customer customer = (Customer) customers.get(0); customer.updateStuff(...); if ( ++count % 20 == 0 ) { //flush a batch of updates and release memory: session.flush(); session.clear(); } } tx.commit(); session.close();