System and method for providing failover protection for a cluster of host computers operates in one of two modes. When the number of host computers in the cluster is equal to or less than a threshold number, the host computers in the cluster operate in an all-active heartbeating mode in which each of the host computers is enabled to function as a master node. When the number of host computers in the cluster is greater than the threshold number, the host computers in the cluster operate in a distributed heartbeating mode in which some of the host computers function as master nodes and at least one of the host computers functions as a slave node.