What do you mean by "how can I make ds xml to be portable as well? "? Portable how? 1) To a different operating system? 2) To a database other than Sybase? 3) To a different application server? 1) The one *-ds.xml file works on all OSes. 2) I suppose you could use system properties for all the settings in *-ds.xml and then set those properties when running the app server. But then you have to maintain those settings for different databases. It is much easier to have a *-ds.xml file per database. Or do what I do - I have a generic *-ds.xml file and generate the final one using Ant, with Ant properties providing the database-specific parts. 3) Not possible - each app server has its own way of defining datasources. View the original post : http://www.jboss.org/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4256279#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.org/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...