Abstract: A guaranteed distributed failure notification method is described, wherein a failure notification (FN) facility allows applications using the facility to create FN groups to which the application associates an application state. The application registers failure handlers with the FN facility on nodes in the FN group; each failure handler is associated with a specific FN group. When, on a given node, the FN facility learns of a failure in the FN group, the facility executes the associated failure handler on that node. System failures detected by the application are signaled to other FN group members using the facility. The facility detects system failures that occur in an overlay network on which the facility is implemented, and signals a failure notification to the other FN group members.