VCS detects failure of an application by issuing specific commands, tests, or scripts to monitor the overall health of an application. VCS also determines the health of underlying resources by supporting the applications such as file systems and network interfaces.

VCS uses a redundant network heartbeat to discriminate between the loss of a system and the loss of communication between systems. VCS can also use SCSI3-based membership coordination and data protection for detecting failure on a node and on fencing.