CompTIA Server+ SK0-005 Practice Question

The correct answer is that the heartbeat signal is being delayed by network congestion. In a high-availability cluster, nodes send periodic 'heartbeat' signals to each other to confirm they are online and operational. Best practice dictates that this communication should occur over a dedicated, private network to prevent interference from other traffic. In this scenario, both client traffic and heartbeat signals share the same network. During periods of high activity, the network becomes congested, which can delay or drop the time-sensitive heartbeat packets. The passive node interprets this loss of communication as a failure of the active node and incorrectly initiates a failover.

• The failback mechanism is the process of returning services to the original primary node after a failover and is not the cause of the initial false failover.
• An intermittent power supply failure is less likely because the problem is specifically correlated with high network traffic and the scenario states the active node remains operational.
• A split-brain condition, where both nodes believe they are the active node, is typically the result of a complete communication failure, not just the intermittent loss of signal described. The root cause here is the congestion leading to the perceived failure.