CXF-based create service failure - web-services

Question

We recently started having an error related to creation of CXF-based SOAP service. The problematic code is deployed on both staging and production environment, on 2 nodes on each environments. On each environment, the nodes are load balanced and are completely independent from each other. The problem is only active on staging environment. The staging was deployed 10 days before the problem has first appeared last Friday.
The production environment runs the same code and works fine.
Below is the code that produces an error. As you may see, the problem happens while trying to read the WSDL packaged in the same war, before setting the endpoint or making a call. The rest of system, including other CXF based web services, work fine.
URL wsdl = getClass().getResource("/wsdl/globalplatform/v2.0.0/wsdl/SELifeCycleNotification.wsdl");
SELifeCycleNotificationService service = new SELifeCycleNotificationService(wsdl, new QName("http://globalplatform.org/selifecyclenotification", "SELifeCycleNotificationService"));
The stacktrace is below. We use CXF version 2.2.9 with jboss 5.0.1 and JDK 1.6. For obvious reasons, upgrading of cxf, jboss or jdk is not an option. Changing the timeout settings on global level does not seem to be good option either, as it will likely affect everything elese, and I do not like it.
Can someone point out what may cause this problem ? As the problem manifest itself on booth nodes of the same environment, it is most likely caused by something common to two nodes affected, like network settings. However, the wsdl reading operation should be local, both machines have plenty of available disk space and RAM allocated for JVMs, and the rest of the system works fine.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
javax.xml.ws.WebServiceException: org.apache.cxf.service.factory.ServiceConstructionException: Failed to create service.
at org.apache.cxf.jaxws.ServiceImpl.<init>(ServiceImpl.java:152)
at org.apache.cxf.jaxws.spi.ProviderImpl.createServiceDelegate(ProviderImpl.java:63)
at javax.xml.ws.Service.<init>(Service.java:36)
at org.globalplatform.selifecyclenotification.SELifeCycleNotificationService.<init>(SELifeCycleNotificationService.java:42)
at com.somecompany.services.tsm.queue.DeviceChangeQueuedMessageSender.sendMessage(DeviceChangeQueuedMessageSender.java:38)
Caused by: org.apache.cxf.service.factory.ServiceConstructionException: Failed to create service.
at org.apache.cxf.wsdl11.WSDLServiceFactory.<init>(WSDLServiceFactory.java:93)
at org.apache.cxf.jaxws.ServiceImpl.initializePorts(ServiceImpl.java:207)
at org.apache.cxf.jaxws.ServiceImpl.<init>(ServiceImpl.java:150)
... 30 more
Caused by: javax.wsdl.WSDLException: WSDLException (at /wsdl:definitions/wsdl:types/xsd:schema/xsd:schema): faultCode=PARSER_ERROR: Problem parsing 'vfszip:/opt/path/jboss-5.0.1.GA/server/default/deploy/somecompany-tsm-services.war/WEB-INF/lib/somecompany-gp-soap-messages-1.0-BRANCH.jar/wsdl/globalplatform/v2.0.0/xsd/xmldsig-core-schema.xsd'.: java.net.ConnectException: Connection timed out
at com.ibm.wsdl.xml.WSDLReaderImpl.getDocument(Unknown Source)
at com.ibm.wsdl.xml.WSDLReaderImpl.parseSchema(Unknown Source)
at com.ibm.wsdl.xml.WSDLReaderImpl.parseSchema(Unknown Source)
at com.ibm.wsdl.xml.WSDLReaderImpl.parseSchema(Unknown Source)
at com.ibm.wsdl.xml.WSDLReaderImpl.parseTypes(Unknown Source)
at com.ibm.wsdl.xml.WSDLReaderImpl.parseDefinitions(Unknown Source)
at com.ibm.wsdl.xml.WSDLReaderImpl.readWSDL(Unknown Source)
at com.ibm.wsdl.xml.WSDLReaderImpl.readWSDL(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.cxf.wsdl11.WSDLManagerImpl.loadDefinition(WSDLManagerImpl.java:230)
at org.apache.cxf.wsdl11.WSDLManagerImpl.getDefinition(WSDLManagerImpl.java:179)
at org.apache.cxf.wsdl11.WSDLServiceFactory.<init>(WSDLServiceFactory.java:91)
... 32 more
Caused by: java.net.ConnectException: Connection timed out
at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.socketConnect(Native Method)
at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.doConnect(PlainSocketImpl.java:333)
at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.connectToAddress(PlainSocketImpl.java:195)
at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.connect(PlainSocketImpl.java:182)
at java.net.SocksSocketImpl.connect(SocksSocketImpl.java:366)
at java.net.Socket.connect(Socket.java:529)
at java.net.Socket.connect(Socket.java:478)
at sun.net.NetworkClient.doConnect(NetworkClient.java:163)
at sun.net.www.http.HttpClient.openServer(HttpClient.java:394)
at sun.net.www.http.HttpClient.openServer(HttpClient.java:529)
at sun.net.www.http.HttpClient.<init>(HttpClient.java:233)
at sun.net.www.http.HttpClient.New(HttpClient.java:306)
at sun.net.www.http.HttpClient.New(HttpClient.java:323)
at sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.getNewHttpClient(HttpURLConnection.java:975)
at sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.plainConnect(HttpURLConnection.java:916)
at sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.connect(HttpURLConnection.java:841)
at sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.getInputStream(HttpURLConnection.java:1177)
at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLEntityManager.setupCurrentEntity(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLEntityManager.startEntity(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLEntityManager.startDTDEntity(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDTDScannerImpl.setInputSource(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDocumentScannerImpl$DTDDispatcher.dispatch(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanDocument(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.parsers.XMLParser.parse(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.parsers.DOMParser.parse(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.jaxp.DocumentBuilderImpl.parse(Unknown Source)
... 43 more