A method, apparatus, and computer instructions for managing keepalive transmissions. A keepalive packet is received from a remote data processing over a particular connection within a set of connections to the remote data processing system. Timers for each of the set of connections are reset in response to receiving a response to a keepalive packet from the remote data processing system such that only a single keepalive packet is required to maintain all of the plurality of connections with the remote data processing system. In this manner, the number of requests and responses with respect to whether a connection is active is minimized, reducing congestion in a network data processing system.