How to prevent web service from starting if install condition not met on WebSphere Application Server?

We have a web service running on WebSphere Application Server.

When certain critical properties are missing, we want to prevent the EAR containing the web service from starting outright thus preventing more esoteric and complicated errors downstream.

What is the best way to achieve that? We tried throwing runtime errors, they log well, but that does not prevent the application from starting.

Thank you in advance for any help, Bertrand

via Chebli Mohamed