Threads should generally not be created by the user directly is because things may not work correctly. User-created threads do not have some of the thread-local variables pre-set by WebLogic when it creates it's own execute threads, the associated transaction context, or the environment such as the proper class loader. The WebLogic-specific way of doing this is with a startup class or using the WebLogic Time Services. The portable way to do this is to define a load-on-startup servlet, doing the initialization in the init() method and the cleanup in the destroy() method. The servlet itself does nothing. This approach also allows for undeploy/redeploy of the application without restarting the server, including proper cleanup/initialization each time. It also providers more dynamic management of the dependent classes without restarting the server.