To clarify the problem description from http://jira.jboss.com/jira/browse/EJBTHREE-1167 @Clustered (in the ha-client project) has a reference to org.jboss.ha.client.loadbalance.LoadBalancePolicy (also in the ha-client project). There are no references back to the cluster module in JBoss AS. As long as @Clustered itself is in ha-client, ClusteredImpl depends on ha-client. So I don't see the benefit of replacing the class with a string. I suppose if you changed it to a string *and* took the annotation itself back into ejb3, then you get a benefit. Before going down this road though, we should determine how to handle the aspects module, which also depends on the ha-client project. See http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&t=124773, particularly the last post. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4114226#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...