# What happens when a the Elasticsearch server you're querying goes down?
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-happens-when-a-the-elasticsearch-server-youre-querying-goes-down/111176
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [December 11, 2017, 8:45pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-happens-when-a-the-elasticsearch-server-youre-querying-goes-down/111176 "2017-12-11T20:45:46Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@arisbanach](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/arisbanach)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2017, 8:45pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-happens-when-a-the-elasticsearch-server-youre-querying-goes-down/111176/1 "2017-12-11T20:45:46Z")
We are discussing how to handle this, and I'm not sure if we're misunderstanding something. We are querying one of our three Elasticsearch nodes (e.g. [elasticsearch1.ourdomain.com](http://elasticsearch1.ourdomain.com)) and are wondering what will happen if that server goes down. Whether it's for updating software or some kind of other issue, that would mean our software just stops working, right?
To ensure this doesn't happen, should we set up a load balancer in front of our cluster?
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### Author:  [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2017, 8:47pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-happens-when-a-the-elasticsearch-server-youre-querying-goes-down/111176/2 "2017-12-11T20:47:47Z")
Depends how you are interacting with it.
If you use one of the clients we maintain it should timeout and retry another node. Otherwise, a load balancer makes sense.
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### Author:  [@arisbanach](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/arisbanach)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2017, 8:51pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-happens-when-a-the-elasticsearch-server-youre-querying-goes-down/111176/3 "2017-12-11T20:51:30Z")
Thanks! Would you say most people use one of the clients or a load balancer?
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### Author:  [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2017, 9:23pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-happens-when-a-the-elasticsearch-server-youre-querying-goes-down/111176/4 "2017-12-11T21:23:13Z")
Yep.
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### Author:  [@arisbanach](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/arisbanach)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2017, 9:26pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-happens-when-a-the-elasticsearch-server-youre-querying-goes-down/111176/5 "2017-12-11T21:26:03Z")
Lol, I meant which would you say most use?
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### Author:  [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2017, 9:27pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-happens-when-a-the-elasticsearch-server-youre-querying-goes-down/111176/6 "2017-12-11T21:27:16Z")
That's pretty impossible to measure. Just pick one that works for you and stick with it 🙂
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### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2018, 9:27pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-happens-when-a-the-elasticsearch-server-youre-querying-goes-down/111176/7 "2018-01-08T21:27:49Z")
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