A fault tolerant distributed computing system includes a communication link and a plurality of nodes in electronic communication with one another by the communication link. Each node executes at least one node-specific application, includes a standby database that stores a standby copy corresponding to one of the node-specific applications executed by one of the remaining nodes that are part of the distributed computing system, and includes a spare computational capacity sufficient to execute at least one standby copy of one of the node-specific applications stored in the standby database. In response to determining a specific node is non-operational, the remaining nodes execute all the standby copies of the one or more node-specific applications that were previously executed by the specific node that is now non-operational.