> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.vortexiq.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Active Nodes (status=live), CockroachDB

> Active Nodes (status=live) for CockroachDB clusters. Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre. How to read it, why it matters, and how to act on it.

**Card class:** [Non-Hero](/nerve-centre/overview#card-classes-explained)  •  **Category:** [Replication](/nerve-centre/connectors#connectors-by-type)

## At a glance

> **Active Nodes (status=live)** counts the CockroachDB nodes currently reporting a `live` liveness status to the cluster. It is the count of nodes that are heartbeating their node-liveness range and are eligible to hold leases and serve traffic. A node that has crashed, been network-partitioned, or is mid-restart drops out of this count within a few seconds, so the card is a fast, real-time pulse on how much of your cluster is actually carrying load.

|                    |                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    |
| ------------------ | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **What it tracks** | Active Nodes (status=live) for the selected period, read from node-liveness state.                                                                                                                                                                                                 |
| **Data source**    | `crdb_internal.gossip_liveness` (and the `liveness.livenodes` time-series metric), which exposes each node's `is_live` flag. The DB Console Cluster Overview shows the same live/suspect/dead breakdown.                                                                           |
| **Time window**    | `RT` (real-time, refreshed on each poll).                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          |
| **Alert trigger**  | None on this card directly. Watch [Cluster Node Count](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/cockroachdb/cluster-node-count) for the "node lost" alert and [Unavailable or Under-Replicated Ranges](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/cockroachdb/unavailable-or-under-replicated-ranges) for quorum risk. |
| **Roles**          | DBA, platform, SRE                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 |

## What it tracks

This card reports the number of nodes whose liveness status is `live` at poll time. CockroachDB tracks node liveness through a dedicated heartbeat: every node periodically writes to the node-liveness range, and a node is `live` only while its lease on that record is valid (the default liveness duration is roughly 9 seconds). When a node stops heartbeating, it transitions to `suspect` and then, after the time-until-store-dead window (5 minutes by default), to `dead`. Active Nodes is the headcount of the `live` set: the nodes that can currently take on range leases, accept SQL connections, and participate in Raft quorum. A healthy steady-state value equals your provisioned node count. A dip means a node has stopped heartbeating, which precedes lease transfers, possible under-replication, and rebalancing.

## Reconciling against the source

To confirm the figure natively, run `SELECT node_id, is_live FROM crdb_internal.gossip_liveness ORDER BY node_id;` or open the DB Console Cluster Overview, where nodes are grouped as Live, Suspect, and Dead. On CockroachDB Cloud, the same live-node count appears on the cluster's Overview page. Brief differences are usually a node that is `suspect` (heartbeat just missed) rather than truly `dead`, so allow a few seconds for liveness to settle before treating a dip as a real node loss.

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### Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

*Active Nodes (status=live)* is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across CockroachDB and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English.

[Start for free](https://app.vortexiq.ai/login) or [book a demo](https://www.vortexiq.ai/contact-us) to see this metric running on your own data.