I just read this in the jboss-app.xml dtd http://www.jboss.org/j2ee/dtd/jboss-app_4_2.dtd <!-- | The value of the module-order could be implicit or strict | <module-order>strict</module-order> | or | <module-order>implicit</module-order> | The strict value indicates that the deployments of the modules will | be done in the order that would be specified in the application.xml | and jboss-app.xml file . | The implicit value indicates the deployment would follow the order | which would be specified in the DeploymentSorter. | The default order will be implicit to support backward compatibility | --> | <!ELEMENT module-order (#PCDATA)> Which version of JBoss are you using? And do you see the deployment ordering behaving as explained in the dtd? View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4184130#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...