You can configure how often the heartbeat happens and the number or times an instance attempts to detect the quorum heartbeat before it assumes the quorum device is not functioning with the quorum heartbeat interval and the quorum heartbeat retries configuration parameters, respectively.
The quorum heartbeat interval configuration parameter specifies the number of seconds between quorum heartbeats. The default is 5, so each instance writes a quorum heartbeat once every 5 seconds. The minimum value is 1 second and the maximum value is 60 seconds.
Most sites need not tune this configuration parameter. Setting quorum heartbeat interval to a lower number increases the heartbeat overhead, but speeds the detection of a lost disk link, so instances terminate more quickly if they are blocked or have lost their SAN link. Setting quorum heartbeat interval to a higher value reduces the heartbeat overhead, but delays the detection of a lost disk link. The amount of overhead caused by the heartbeat depends on the performance of your disk subsystem.
The quorum heartbeat retires configuration parameter specifies the number of times an instance attempts to detect a quorum heartbeat before determining that the quorum device is no longer running, and exiting. The default is 2 (the instance terminates after the third consecutive quorum heartbeat failure because the first two failed). The minimum value is 0, indicating that the instance should terminate upon the first quorum heartbeat failure, and the maximum value is 32,768.
Tuning this to a lower number causes an instance to fail over more quickly when access to the quorum device is lost, potentially improving application recovery times. Tuning this to a higher number degrades application recovery, reducing the chances that a transient disk access problem causes an instance failure.
