I can think of a couple alternatives (although, not sure how good they are). 1.) Put the MySql Master (or all of MySql boxes) in a Linux cluster. Imagine 2 boxes in a cluster. I'm pretty sure you can configure it so that one node is a "master", and if it dies, then the other node takes over the "Master's" IP address. You would probably want to separate your storage from any one server in the cluster. (i.e. using a SAN). Plus, I'm not sure if the server that "becomes the Master" can actually be used while it's in waiting (e.g., It may need to be dormant). However, with 3 boxes, you could have a 2-box Linux Cluster, with 1 backup master. If both masters go down, though, then the cluster would fail. Not sure if you can make all the boxes in a cluster "capable of becoming the master". 2.) I believe there are Linux-based Load Balancers with failover capabilities out there. So, you'd have "x" number of Jboss servers connecting to a single IP on the Linux Load balancer server, which would farm requests out to "y" number of MySql Master/Slave boxes NOT in a cluster (even Windows boxes). It seems like the Load-balancer would just heartbeat the downstream boxes, and if one doesn't answer, then mark it as down? I would be curious to hear of any JBoss + Database specific technologies that might be able to address this, too. E.g., does JBoss Cluster technology have any ability to farm database requests out to multiple databse servers? I don't know the answer to that one. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=3959596#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...