Ok am currently writting some server application that acts as a brokering system... Bassically it receives data and forwards it to a 3rd party.

2 of the features this application must have is clustering and some form of managment/configuration.

Clustering will be taken care of by JGroups...

Now for the mangement/config I have to be able to start/stop, apply new config value on the fly without haveing to actually login to the actuall computer that host the application. Also I was thinking of writting a central way of managing all my server applications...

Maybe JMX is a better solution, but I mave a few dieas with JBOss cache, aybe it will answer my question about JBoss cache...

So I was thinking of having my application read the jboss cache for config values and also have a front end web to set the config values. The front end would allow to persist the config values in a db and to the cache. The applications could read the cache and take the config values. Now if I used the frontend to update the config values in the db and the cache, would my applications notice the change in the cache and use the new values. So bassically would I be able to invalidate the cahce (Refresh) and have my application detect the change?

Or is this overkill! Should I use JMX?