Java Web Application Configuration Patterns

Question

Are there any patterns or best practices that can be used to simplify changing configuration profiles for java web applications across multiple environments. e.g. JDBC URLs,

Answer 1

I tend to work more with .NET lately, so my Java is fairly rusty. I'm pretty sure this would work in any language with a little tweaking.

We use an extension of the .NET configuration system that allows us to use environment and/or application specific settings in conjunction with a more global configuration. The configuration system uses a Global setting to each machine identifies it as dev, beta, or production (the default). A set of files loaded in order, and the setting from the last file overrides any setting that was defined in a previously loaded file. Files are loaded in the following order:

1. Global settings
2. Application specific settings
3. Application specific environment overrides

All the files are in source control, and since the environment is defined on the machine the application is running on; since it won't access the "beta" configuration unless the machine configuration identifies it as "beta", we can promote all of the configuration files without fear of inadvertently pointing our production application to a dev database.