In accordance with an embodiment, an application server environment can include a plurality of partitions and a resource group template, which can be referenced by a resource group in one or more of the plurality of partitions. A data source configuration can be defined as part of the resource group template. The data source configuration can be overridden with attributes specific to a particular referencing partition. A data source subsystem can create a data source object in accordance with the overridden data source configuration, for use in creating connections to a database associated with the particular referencing partition, monitoring and diagnosing the data source object.