Thank you very much Brain for quick reply. Here, I just want to list my couple cents on that issue which may help for others: 1. number of retries to get connection from pool is by default the maximum value, 30. That's the reason, it keeps trying for about 30 seconds (about a second every try). So, I reduced that number to the minimum value 1 by adding following attribute | <attribute name="numberOfRetries" isParam="true">1</attribute> | inside jboss-service.xml, like: | <attribute name="Configuration"> | <!-- Using the following <invoker> element instead of the InvokerLocator above because specific attributes needed. --> | <!-- If wanted to use any of the parameters below, can just add them as parameters to the url above if wanted use the InvokerLocator attribute. --> | <config> | <!-- Other than transport type and handler, none of these configurations are required (will just use defaults). --> | <invoker transport="socket"> | <attribute name="dataType" isParam="true">invocation</attribute> | <attribute name="marshaller" isParam="true">org.jboss.invocation.unified.marshall.InvocationMarshaller</attribute> | <attribute name="unmarshaller" isParam="true">org.jboss.invocation.unified.marshall.InvocationUnMarshaller</attribute> | <!-- This will be port on which the marshall loader port runs on. --> | <!-- <attribute name="loaderport" isParam="true">4447</attribute> --> | <!-- The following are specific to socket invoker --> | <!-- <attribute name="numAcceptThreads">1</attribute>--> | <!-- <attribute name="maxPoolSize">303</attribute>--> | <!-- <attribute name="clientMaxPoolSize" isParam="true">304</attribute>--> | <attribute name="socketTimeout" isParam="true">600000</attribute> | <attribute name="serverBindAddress">${jboss.bind.address}</attribute> | <attribute name="serverBindPort">4446</attribute> | <!-- <attribute name="clientConnectAddress">216.23.33.2</attribute> --> | <!-- <attribute name="clientConnectPort">7777</attribute> --> | <attribute name="enableTcpNoDelay" isParam="true">true</attribute> | <attribute name="numberOfRetries" isParam="true">1</attribute> | 2. Cache ejb home in client code will help a lot: It seems failover and raise that connection exception only whenever I did a new jndi lookup for an ejb. So, in my client code, I cache ejb home as much as I can, which will avoid those connection retries a lot. Again, any further hints or suggestions are highly appreciated. Thanks a lot again for the help. David View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4152796#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...