In this chapter the Jadex framework is presented that aims at supporting the construction of distributed and concurrent applications. Main conceptual entity in Jadex is an active component that combines properties of agents with software components in order to strengthen the software technical means for developing applications. The conceptual foundations of Jadex as well the advantages of active components will be described in a practical way by using a disaster management scenario as a running example. Concretely, the notions of virtual environment, active components as well as BDI agents are introduced to show how a simulation scenario can be built, in which different kinds of rescue forces are coordinated to handle disasters in a cooperative way.