This will work for EJB / Web components. Our problem is that we have to define dependencies for service components. According to the documentation availabla on the net, this should work the same way. But when I use this dependency definition with JBoss 5, it doesn't work for me. First possibility: Dependency definition without attribute | <mbean code="com.foo.bar.ConfigInformation" name="user:service=ESConfigInformation" | <depends>jboss.jca:name=es/jdbc/Login_DS,service=DataSourceBinding</depends> | </mbean> | -> There is still an error during the initialization of the ESConfigInformation mbean because the datasource cannot be retrieved. When the sar-file is deployed after the datasource deployment, it works. Second possibility: | <mbean code="com.foo.bar.ConfigInformation" | name="user:service=ESConfigInformation" | <depends><depends optional-attribute-name="DataSource">jboss.jca:service=DataSourceBinding,name=es/jdbc/Login_DS</depends></depends> | </mbean> | -> The error occurs earlier, during the interpretation of the deployment metadata, because the dependency can't be resolved (the Login_DS is not available). Does anyone have an idea, why the server reacts like that? View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4201774#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...