But I think we are talking about different things, at least from my understanding of your original post. There is a need to merge/hide/override at runtime and this depends upon the type of metadata (it also includes having the ability to query where the data came from). The full normalized view should be maintained elsewhere. When I talk about merging I'm talking about giving the runtime view, e.g. getting all the resource-refs for a bean (from all levels). View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=3978139#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...