what is the state of the art, specifically with JSR 236 that should address the question. Is that already included in some application server?
JSR 236 (Concurrency utils for Java EE) has eventually became part of Java EE 7. Java EE 7 is currently implemented by GlassFish 4, and it's expected that Wildfly 8 (formerly JBoss AS/EAP) will implement it early next year.
A current disadvantage of JSR 236 is that you cannot define your own thread pool; you have to do with the one provided by the application server which (IMHO) seriously affects the usability of the specification. You may be able to work around this limitation using proprietary methods, e.g. perhaps by interacting with a graphical UI or by modifying some file in the installation directory of your application (which you are typically not allowed to do in bigger companies).
See this for some additional resources about JSR 236.