Great post. I want to point one thing with (1). When you change MBD_SLEEP_TIME, you have to keep in mind that MAX_SBD_FAIL (default 3) kind of depends on it. This is the maximum number of retries before it considers a host unreachable and assumes that all jobs running on that host have exited and any rerunnable jobs are scheduled to be rerun on another host. Now the interval between the retries is by default set to MBD_SLEEP_TIME/10. So when a network blip or something happens, and the 3 retires happen in 3 secs, there is a good chance that it will consider a host unreachable. So to maintain the same interval as before, one can increase the number of retires itself. For example, change MAX_SBD_FAIL to 15 or so. Hope that helps. Krish Putta