You can configure the Geographic Edition software to send email notification and to run an action script when a heartbeat is lost. You configure heartbeat-loss notification by using the optional Notification_emailaddrs and Notification_actioncmd properties.
Heartbeat-loss notification occurs if the heartbeat still fails after the interval you configure with the Query_interval property of the heartbeat. The heartbeat monitor sends out a heartbeat request to the responder on the logical host every Query_interval period. If no response is received within the Query_interval, an internal count is incremented. If the recount reaches the number that is specified in the heartbeat.retries property, the heartbeat is deemed to have failed.
For example, you can use the default Query_interval of 120 seconds and the default heartbeat.retries of 3. The heartbeat-lost event will be sent a maximum of 10 minutes after the last heartbeat response from the partner cluster.
120sec (delay since last query) + 3*120sec (wait for normal response) + 120 sec (wait for retry response)
Delays can occur between the generation of the heartbeat-loss event and the triggering of the heartbeat-loss notification.
The following sections describe how to configure the heartbeat-loss notification properties and how to create a custom action script that the Geographic Edition software runs after a heartbeat-loss event.