System and method for deploying enterprise components using deployment descriptors

System and method for deploying enterprise components using a deployment descriptor are described herein. In one embodiment, a deployment module of an enterprise container parses a deployment descriptor (DD) for deploying one or more enterprise components. For each of the enterprise components being deployed, the deployment module retrieves from the DD mapping information for mapping one or more persistent fields to one or more columns of a database table, where for each persistent field, the mapping information includes names of the persistent field and the columns of the database table where the persistent field being mapped to. Thereafter, the deployment module populates each of the persistent fields of each enterprise component in the database table based on the mapping information during a deployment of the enterprise component. Other methods and apparatuses are also described.