When VCS detects an application or node failure, VCS brings application services up on a different node in a cluster.

Figure: VCS virtualizes IP addresses and system names to ensure application availability shows how VCS virtualizes IP addresses and system names, so client systems continue to access the application and are unaware of which server they use.

For example, in a two-node cluster consisting of db-server1 and db-server2, a virtual address may be called db-server. Clients access db-server and are unaware of which physical server hosts the db-server.