Besides defining a criterion for persistent faults, the retry interval affects the response of a fault monitor to the following faults:
Unavailability of SAP xserver that the SAP DB fault monitor detects. If the SAP DB fault monitor detects that SAP xserver is unavailable twice within the retry interval, the SAP DB fault monitor restarts SAP xserver.
Persistent system errors. A persistent system error is a system error that occurs four times within the retry interval. If a persistent system error occurs, the fault monitor restarts SAP xserver.