Stop a stand-alone and web app from starting in an App Server

Question

I want to programmatically shut down an application from starting, e.g., mid-way in its start, if a certain condition is raised. I do not want code as System.exit(int) as this API will terminate the entire JVM and more than 1 application running in the JVM will be shut down. My goal is to stop the start process of only one application that is running in the same shared JVM. The JVM is running more than 1 application.
Obviously, throwing a Runtime exception (throw new RuntimeException())does not stop the application - application still gets started.
I want a solution that will work for both stand-alone application and a web application. However, if I have to use two different approaches (one approach for stand-alone, another for web), I will be fine with that approach.
I am using WebSphere 6.1 as application server.
Please suggest what are my options to stop the application from start for both stand-alone and web application.

Answer 1

There is of course no general solution to that.
Consider the following.
1. Initial thread starts 10 threads, and then it exits.
2. One thread determines that exit should occur.
3. How do other threads get terminated?
...and a web application.Conceptually that is a bit suspect. If you don't want it to run then the simple solution is don't install it. In general you don't want a web app to "exit" if a known error condition occurs. For example it shouldn't exit if the database connection fails but instead the behavior should change until the database connection is restored.