Here's the basic infrastructure of the system of a system I'm now responsible for cleaning up:
1. core SOA (has persistence, transactions, web services, security)
2. various service modules (App A, App B, etc.) that talk to the core SOA - for example, this is where the DAO, BO, TO, persistence (hibernate) objects are.
3. client application (App A, App B, etc.)

Currently, during the build process the core SOA (#1) and all the service modules (#2) are bundled together in a single ear file. The client applications each have their own war. All these files get deployed to a server running JBoss (we are using version 4.03, but I'm looking to upgrade it).

I'd like to split up the large ear file (#1 and #2) into several ear files:
-a single ear file for the core
-a separate ear file for each service module (the service modules are supposedly independent of one another)

The reason I want to do this is that if I update App B, I should only have to redeploy the service module and client app for App B. I shouldn't have to reploy the whole entire thing.

My questions:
-does it make sense to separate the core SOA and the various service modules into separate ear files?
-if so, in JBoss, how do I ensure that the core SOA gets loaded before the various service modules?
-is there anything you can think of off the top of your head that I should be careful


thanks in advance!!