Look up
work manager
and see if your container supports it yet.
Your not supposed to create your own threads in
J2EE (you can off course) , the idea is you submit tasks to a work manager that is integrated in the container, makes
thread management a lot easier going forward.
I guess if you are doing something really complex and need the advantages of say
Java 7 fork / join doing the threading yourself may be preferable but your losing some of the advantages of J2EE.
"Eagles may soar but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines" SCJP 1.6, SCWCD 1.4, SCJD 1.5,SCBCD 5