Failover cluster resource recovery behavior in Windows Server 2008

In Windows Server 2003 server clusters, the default resource recovery behavior is to try to restart a resource on the same node that owns the server cluster. The resource tries up to three restarts in a 15-minute period. If the resource cannot come back to an Online state on the original owner, the resource is marked as "Failed." Then, the resource fails over to another node in the cluster.

In Windows Server 2008 Failover Clusters, the default recovery behavior has changed. In Windows Server 2008 Failover Clusters, the resource tries only one restart in a 15-minute period before the resource is marked as "Failed." Then, the Service group or the Application group to which the resource belongs is failed over to another node in the cluster. This new behavior improves the high availability model by giving resources only one restart attempt on each node in the cluster before a failover occurs. As soon as an unsuccessful attempt to restart a failed resource on each node in the cluster is made, the resource is marked as "Failed."

If there is no intervention and the resource remains in the failed state for 60 minutes, Windows Server tries to bring the resource online again. This behavior is based on the default values specified in the RetryPeriodOnFailure property of each resource. For more information about the RetryPeriodOnFailure property, see the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article:

228923 Cluster resources can be configured to restart automatically