End user service configuration via deployment descriptor

[Willy Dobé]

Hello friends,
stand alone JAVA programs usually come with a configuration file that 
allows the end user to tweak program's behavior. For example: programs 
that use databases need connectivity parameters such as database URL, 
user, password, ...

When having a web service instead of a simple JAVA program I thought the 
deployment descriptor would be the right place to add configuration 
params but I have no idea how to read the parameters' values from my 
service implementation.

Example: Class CustomerDatabase implements a web service that grants 
access to the corporate customer database over JDBC. Thus, 
CustomerDatabase needs to read connectivity params configured in this 
deployment descriptor:

  <deployment ...>
    <service name="CustomerDatabase" ...>
      <parameter name="dbUrl" value="jdbc:odbc:customerdb"/>
      <parameter name="dbUser" value="CustomerDatabaseService"/>
      <parameter name="dbPassword" value="secret"/>
      ...
      <parameter name="className" value="package.CustomerService"/>
      <parameter name="allowedMethods" value="*"/>
      ...
    </service>
  </deployment>
Which class of the AXIS framework allows to access this information? 
Which methods do so?

Thanks for help
Willy