protected function loadDeploymentDescriptors()
    {

        // load the web application base directory
        $webappPath = $this->getApplication()->getWebappPath();

        // load the deployment service
        /** @var \AppserverIo\Appserver\Core\Api\DeploymentService $deploymentService */
        $deploymentService = $this->getApplication()->newService('AppserverIo\Appserver\Core\Api\DeploymentService');

        // prepare the array with the deployment descriptor with the fallback deployment descriptor
        $deploymentDescriptors = array($deploymentService->getConfdDir(sprintf('%s.xml', $descriptorName = $this->getConfiguration()->getDescriptorName())));

        // try to locate deployment descriptors in the configured directories
        foreach ($this->getDirectories() as $directory) {
            // make sure we've a path, relative to the webapp directory
            $strippedDirectory = ltrim(str_replace($webappPath, '', $directory), DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR);

            // add the environment aware deployment descriptor to the array
            array_push(
                $deploymentDescriptors,
                AppEnvironmentHelper::getEnvironmentAwareGlobPattern($webappPath, $strippedDirectory . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . $descriptorName)
            );
        }


        // return the loaded deployment descriptors
        return $deploymentDescriptors;
    }