Autonomic monitoring for web high availability

A method for maintaining a high availability processing environment, said method comprising:

• providing a network having a plurality of clusters, each cluster of the network comprising a plurality of identical servers, each cluster of the network being directly connected to at least one other cluster of the network, wherein each pair of clusters directly connected to each other is characterized by each server in a first cluster of the pair of clusters being directly connected to at least one server in a second cluster of the pair of clusters via a communication link;
• providing a control server adapted to monitor an operational status of said communication link, said operational status of the communication link being that said communication link is operational or non-operational, said control server being directly linked to each server of at least two servers in each cluster via a separate communication channel between the control server and each server of the at least two servers in each cluster, wherein there is no coinciding path segment among the separate communication channels between the control server and each server of the at least two servers in each cluster;
• and
• monitoring an operational status of a first communication link between a first server of the first cluster and a second server of the second cluster, said monitoring being performed by the control server, said monitoring including sending a query signal to the first server, said query signal requesting the first server to send a response signal to the control server indicating the status of the first communication link, said operational status of the first communication link being that said first communication link is operational or non-operational.