The boolean configuration approach seems fine. It's implements the most likely registration technique. HAServiceMBeanSupport is just a helper class, so nothing wrong with making people implement more exotic strategies themselves. Encapsulate the registration as a method called from startService(). Expose the method as protected. That way if people want to override the behavior, it's easy. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4065402#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...