7.1.4 Instant Failure Detection for X8M Systems

Exadata uses heartbeats to detect the failure of various components. Server failure detection normally requires many missed heartbeats to avoid a false failure diagnosis. Exadata uses remote direct memory access (RDMA) on the RoCE network to quickly confirm server failures. Since RDMA uses hardware, the remote ports respond quickly even when the server is heavily loaded.

Instant failure detection is a unique technology that works transparently and enables incredible availability for OLTP applications.