An apparatus, system, and method are provided for causing a failed node in a cluster to transfer its outstanding transaction queue to one or more surviving nodes. The heartbeat of the various cluster nodes is used to monitor the nodes within the cluster as the heartbeat is a dedicated link between the cluster nodes. If a failure is detected anywhere within the cluster node (such as a network section, hardware failure, storage device, or interconnections) then a failover procedure will be initiated. The failover procedure includes transferring the transaction queue from the failed node to one or more other nodes within the cluster so that the transactions can be serviced, preferably before a time out period, so that clients are not prompted to re-request the transaction.