diff --git a/Dockerfile b/Dockerfile
index ff3b7d9..87c76f6 100644
--- a/Dockerfile
+++ b/Dockerfile
@@ -2,6 +2,6 @@
 FROM tomcat:9.0-jdk8-adoptopenjdk-openj9
 MAINTAINER dimitrios.chalepakis@pta.de
 
-COPY deploy/conf/context.xml /usr/local/tomcat/conf/context.xml
+COPY deploy/conf/contextExternalConfig.xml /usr/local/tomcat/conf/context.xml
 
 COPY webapps/ /usr/local/tomcat/webapps/
diff --git a/deploy/conf/contextExternalConfig.xml b/deploy/conf/contextExternalConfig.xml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..41c3eb1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/deploy/conf/contextExternalConfig.xml
@@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
+<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
+<!--
+  Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+  contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
+  this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+  The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+  (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+  the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+
+      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+
+  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+  distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+  WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+  See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+  limitations under the License.
+-->
+<!-- The contents of this file will be loaded for each web application -->
+
+<Context>
+
+    <WatchedResource>WEB-INF/web.xml</WatchedResource>
+
+    <Environment name="configurationPathBackend" value="/configPortal/backendConfig.json" type="java.lang.String"/>
+    <Environment name="configurationPathModules" value="/configPortal/moduleConfig.json" type="java.lang.String"/>
+    <Parameter name="OK_PORTAL_ENVIRONMENT" override="false" value="ExternalConfig"/>
+
+</Context>
diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index 9c27fd5..35635af 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -228,7 +228,7 @@
                     </execution>
                     <execution>
                         <id>jacoco-site</id>
-                        <phase>verify</phase>
+                        <phase>test</phase>
                         <goals>
                             <goal>report</goal>
                         </goals>
diff --git a/src/main/java/org/eclipse/openk/portal/common/BackendConfig.java b/src/main/java/org/eclipse/openk/portal/common/BackendConfig.java
index 4ac8a11..df2d9f6 100644
--- a/src/main/java/org/eclipse/openk/portal/common/BackendConfig.java
+++ b/src/main/java/org/eclipse/openk/portal/common/BackendConfig.java
@@ -39,7 +39,11 @@
 
     private static String loadJsonConfig() {
         ResourceLoaderBase resourceLoaderBase = new ResourceLoaderBase();
-        return resourceLoaderBase.loadStringFromResource(configFileName);
+        String jsonConfig = resourceLoaderBase.loadStringFromResource(configFileName);
+        if (jsonConfig == null || jsonConfig.isEmpty()) {
+            jsonConfig = resourceLoaderBase.loadFromPath(configFileName);
+        }
+        return jsonConfig;
     }
 
     public Integer getInternalSessionLengthMillis() { return internalSessionLengthMillis; }
diff --git a/src/main/java/org/eclipse/openk/portal/common/InitBackendConfig.java b/src/main/java/org/eclipse/openk/portal/common/InitBackendConfig.java
index 61d7e63..1a41cea 100644
--- a/src/main/java/org/eclipse/openk/portal/common/InitBackendConfig.java
+++ b/src/main/java/org/eclipse/openk/portal/common/InitBackendConfig.java
@@ -12,8 +12,12 @@
 package org.eclipse.openk.portal.common;
 
 import org.apache.log4j.Logger;
+import org.eclipse.openk.portal.common.util.ResourceLoaderBase;
 import org.eclipse.openk.portal.viewmodel.UserModule;
 
+import javax.naming.Context;
+import javax.naming.InitialContext;
+import javax.naming.NamingException;
 import javax.servlet.ServletException;
 import javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet;
 
@@ -22,6 +26,8 @@
     private static final long serialVersionUID = -7882117179312471533L;
 
     private static final Logger LOGGER = Logger.getLogger(InitBackendConfig.class.getName());
+    private String backendConfigFile;
+    private String moduleConfigFile;
 
     @Override
     public void init() throws ServletException {
@@ -32,28 +38,28 @@
     private void setConfigFiles(String environment ) {
         String env = (environment == null ? "Production": environment);
 
-        String backendConfigFile;
-        String moduleConfigFile;
         switch (env){
+            case "ExternalConfig":
+                loadExternalConfig();
+                break;
             case "DevLocal":
-                backendConfigFile="backendConfigDevLocal.json";
-                moduleConfigFile="moduleConfigDevLocal.json";
+                backendConfigFile ="backendConfigDevLocal.json";
+                moduleConfigFile ="moduleConfigDevLocal.json";
                 break;
             case "DevServer":
-                backendConfigFile="backendConfigDevServer.json";
-                moduleConfigFile="moduleConfigDevServer.json";
+                backendConfigFile ="backendConfigDevServer.json";
+                moduleConfigFile ="moduleConfigDevServer.json";
                 break;
             case "Custom":
-                backendConfigFile="backendConfigCustom.json";
-                moduleConfigFile="moduleConfigCustom.json";
+                backendConfigFile ="backendConfigCustom.json";
+                moduleConfigFile ="moduleConfigCustom.json";
                 break;
             case "Docker":
-                backendConfigFile="backendConfigDocker.json";
-                moduleConfigFile="moduleConfigDocker.json";
+                backendConfigFile ="backendConfigDocker.json";
+                moduleConfigFile ="moduleConfigDocker.json";
                 break;
             default:
-                backendConfigFile="backendConfigProduction.json";
-                moduleConfigFile="moduleConfigProduction.json";
+                setDefault();
         }
 
         BackendConfig.setConfigFileName(backendConfigFile);
@@ -62,4 +68,20 @@
         LOGGER.info("Portal backendendenviroment is: " +environment+ ". Setting moduleConfig accordingly to: "+ moduleConfigFile);
     }
 
+    private void setDefault() {
+        backendConfigFile ="backendConfigProduction.json";
+        moduleConfigFile ="moduleConfigProduction.json";
+    }
+
+    private void loadExternalConfig() {
+        Context ctx = null;
+        try {
+            ctx = new InitialContext();
+            backendConfigFile = (String) ctx.lookup("java:comp/env/configurationPathBackend");
+            moduleConfigFile = (String) ctx.lookup("java:comp/env/configurationPathModules");
+        } catch (NamingException e) {
+            LOGGER.error("Error while loadExternalConfig", e);
+        }
+    }
+
 }
diff --git a/src/main/java/org/eclipse/openk/portal/common/util/ResourceLoaderBase.java b/src/main/java/org/eclipse/openk/portal/common/util/ResourceLoaderBase.java
index cb5d9d3..2a963c9 100644
--- a/src/main/java/org/eclipse/openk/portal/common/util/ResourceLoaderBase.java
+++ b/src/main/java/org/eclipse/openk/portal/common/util/ResourceLoaderBase.java
@@ -1,21 +1,33 @@
 /**
-******************************************************************************
-* Copyright © 2017-2018 PTA GmbH.
-* All rights reserved. This program and the accompanying materials
-* are made available under the terms of the Eclipse Public License v1.0
-* which accompanies this distribution, and is available at
-* 
-*     http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-v10.html
-* 
-******************************************************************************
-*/
+ ******************************************************************************
+ * Copyright © 2017-2018 PTA GmbH.
+ * All rights reserved. This program and the accompanying materials
+ * are made available under the terms of the Eclipse Public License v1.0
+ * which accompanies this distribution, and is available at
+ *
+ *     http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-v10.html
+ *
+ ******************************************************************************
+ */
 package org.eclipse.openk.portal.common.util;
 
+import java.io.IOException;
 import java.io.InputStream;
 import java.io.StringWriter;
+import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;
+import java.nio.file.Files;
+import java.nio.file.Path;
+import java.nio.file.Paths;
+
+import org.apache.commons.io.ByteOrderMark;
 import org.apache.commons.io.IOUtils;
+import org.apache.commons.io.input.BOMInputStream;
+import org.apache.log4j.Logger;
 
 public class ResourceLoaderBase {
+
+    private static final Logger LOGGER = Logger.getLogger(ResourceLoaderBase.class.getName());
+
     private String stream2String(InputStream is) {
         StringWriter writer = new StringWriter();
         try {
@@ -24,8 +36,22 @@
             return "";
         }
         return writer.toString();
+    }
 
+    private String stream2String(InputStream is, String filename) {
+        StringWriter writer = new StringWriter();
 
+        try (BOMInputStream bomInputStream = new BOMInputStream(is, false,
+                ByteOrderMark.UTF_8, ByteOrderMark.UTF_16BE, ByteOrderMark.UTF_16LE,
+                ByteOrderMark.UTF_32BE, ByteOrderMark.UTF_32LE)) {
+            IOUtils.copy(bomInputStream, writer, StandardCharsets.UTF_8.name());
+        } catch (IOException e) {
+            LOGGER.error("Fehler in stream2String()", e);
+            return "";
+        }
+
+        LOGGER.debug("Datei erfolgreich eingelesen: " + filename);
+        return writer.toString();
     }
 
     public String loadStringFromResource(String filename) {
@@ -33,4 +59,17 @@
         InputStream jsonstream = classLoader.getResourceAsStream(filename);
         return stream2String(jsonstream);
     }
+
+    public String loadFromPath(String path) {
+        try {
+            Path paths = Paths.get(path);
+            LOGGER.debug("paths: " + path);
+            try (InputStream inputStream = Files.newInputStream(Paths.get(path))) {
+                return stream2String(inputStream, paths.getFileName().toString());
+            }
+        } catch (IOException e) {
+            LOGGER.error("Fehler in loadFromPath", e);
+            return null;
+        }
+    }
 }
diff --git a/src/main/java/org/eclipse/openk/portal/viewmodel/UserModule.java b/src/main/java/org/eclipse/openk/portal/viewmodel/UserModule.java
index 70c18d3..402676f 100644
--- a/src/main/java/org/eclipse/openk/portal/viewmodel/UserModule.java
+++ b/src/main/java/org/eclipse/openk/portal/viewmodel/UserModule.java
@@ -38,7 +38,11 @@
 
     private static String loadJsonConfig() {
         ResourceLoaderBase resourceLoaderBase = new ResourceLoaderBase();
-        return resourceLoaderBase.loadStringFromResource(configFileName);
+        String jsonConfig = resourceLoaderBase.loadStringFromResource(configFileName);
+        if (jsonConfig == null || jsonConfig.isEmpty()) {
+            jsonConfig = resourceLoaderBase.loadFromPath(configFileName);
+        }
+        return jsonConfig;
     }
 
     public String getModuleName() { return name; }