Group heartbeat information in a domain name system server text record

A first computing device, of a group of computing devices including a second computing device, the first computing device comprising:

• at least one processing resource;
• and
• at least one non-transitory machine-readable storage medium comprising instructions executable by the at least one processing resource to:
• at each of a plurality of different times while the first computing device has a backup group leader role for the group, retrieve from a Domain Name System (DNS) server:
• group heartbeat information stored in a text record of the DNS server at the time of the retrieval, and identifying the second computing device as having a group leader role for the group;
• and
• an update indicator for the group heartbeat information;
• detect that the second computing device having the group leader role is unavailable, based on a determination that the group heartbeat information last retrieved from the DNS server has not been updated for at least a threshold period of time, based on a plurality of the update indicators retrieved from the DNS server;
• and
• based at least in part on the detection, assume the group leader role with the first computing device.

A method of a first storage array of a group of storage arrays separate from a computing device implementing a Domain Name System (DNS) server, the method comprising:

• at each of a plurality of different times while the first storage array is performing a group leader role for the group of computing devices:
• requesting that the DNS server use an atomic multitransaction to replace a payload of a text record of the DNS server with current group heartbeat information of the first storage array and a current update indicator for the current group heartbeat information;
• determining that a threshold number of consecutive atomic multitransactions, requested by the first storage array, failed;
• based on the determination of the failures, ceasing to perform the group leader role for the group with the first storage array, including the first storage array ceasing to request that the DNS server replace the payload of the text record of the DNS server;
• and
• after assuming a backup group leader role with the first storage array, retrieving, with the first storage array, group heartbeat information stored in the text record of the DNS server by a second storage array of the group of storage arrays.