If this is really going to work, then the aliases need to be a true dependencies. i.e. if I do | <deployment> | <alias name="Tomcat">JBossWeb</alias> | </deployment> | | <deployment> | <bean name="X"> | <depends>JBossWeb</depends> | </bean> | This shouldn't fail because "Tomcat" is not deployed yet. It should wait until Tomcat is deployed. And bean "X" should get undeployed when Tomcat is undeployed. Unless you can support these semantics then adding aliases outside of the deployment that creates the original isn't going to work. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4062352#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...