IIRC, the 1 min deployment scenario was due to a deadlock where the AS code used the JGroups up_handler to make an RPC, thus preventing the RPC response from arriving. Wasn't this a bug that was fixed? In that case, it was the node sending the RPC that was faulty. In some other case where a remote node "isn't responding" all you could do would be to send a message to "commit suicide" -- there's no mechanism to evict a node from the group outside of JGroups' own failure detection. But if the node isn't responding to RPCs, it likely wouldn't respond to the "commit suicide" either. Logically, I could see some benefit in some sort of self-healing approach where cluster members detect faults and restart themselves or send commands to others telling them to restart. But this will take a lot of thought. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4120188#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...