looking at the deployment API, it has three components: state enum, stateInfo (a string) and extended state <xsd:element name="state" type="cmp:lifecycleStateType"/> <xsd:element name="stateInfo" type="xsd:string"/> <xsd:element name="extendedState" type="cmp:unboundedXMLAnyNamespace" minOccurs="0"/> We dont really need that stateInfo string do we? the cmp: state identifies every state; if you want to map that enum to a string in the language/locale of preference, you are free to do so. And the extended state can be anything you like. I propose, therefore, dropping that element, leaving a sequence of <xsd:element name="state" type="cmp:lifecycleStateType"/> <xsd:element name="extendedState" type="cmp:unboundedXMLAnyNamespace" minOccurs="0"/> Comments?