This paper reports the development of the Concerto platform, which is dedicated to supporting the deployment of resource-aware parallel Java components on heterogeneous distributed platforms, such as pools of workstations in labs or offices. Our work aims at proposing a basic model of a parallel Java component, together with mechanisms and tools for managing the deployment of such a component on a distributed platform. Moreover, we strive to provide components with means to perceive their runtime environment, so they can for example dynamically adapt themselves to changes occurring in this environment. The Concerto platform was designed in order to allow the deployment of parallel components on a distributed platform. It additionally denes and implements an open and extensible framework for distributed resource discovery and monitoring in such an execution environment.