1) What do you mean by "active"? Examples of RMs included databases. Consider that the app server maintains a pool of database connections, then the database is always "active". 2) You need to configure the RM correctly. For example, for a database, in the *-ds.xml file you need to use the xa-datasource. Look at the differences in the *-ds.xml and -xa-ds.xml files for a given database in docs/examples/jca. Thus the database must support XA transactions and be configured for XA. In that event, there is no autocommit. 3) I'm a little hazy on this, but from what I understand, when you start a transaction woth the TM, the transaction object created gets passed to each of the RMs as you do your work. The RM notes the TM from the transaction object. 4) Once the "commit now" is issued, all RMs would be expected to commit. If one cannot, it needs to do a recovery. There is no rollback at that point. Once the RM says, "yes I can commit," it has guaranteed that the transaction will commit. Any action to the contrary (such as, oops, the disk crashed and I cannot recover) indicates a bug in the RM. 5) I'm not sure. There are two different standards for XA TMs. JBoss Transactions follows one of them. Many RMs handle only the other. But there is one thing I do know. Is Tibco Server a Java service that can be deployed within JBossAS? If not, then JTA will not do the job. You will need JTS. Have you looked at the JBoss Transactions documentation? View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4151851#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...