# Ansible Control Machine failure and long running tasks

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-control-machine-failure-and-long-running-tasks/24533>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Created:** [May 22, 2017, 8:51am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-control-machine-failure-and-long-running-tasks/24533 "2017-05-22T08:51:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Nicolas\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c57346/32.png) [@Nicolas\_B](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Nicolas_B)\
**Post date:** [May 22, 2017, 8:51am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-control-machine-failure-and-long-running-tasks/24533/1 "2017-05-22T08:51:26Z")

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Hello!

Recently, I have started looking at Ansible to be used as an orchestration engine. I need the engine to support long running tasks, and as Ansible supports asynchronous actions with polling, it could fit my use case perfectly.

However, I was wondering what would happen if the control machine encountered a failure? (like an unexpected shutdown, network outage, etc.) From what I read, Tower provides high availability features with one active node and some others passive nodes ready to take over if needed, but does it work in the middle of a playbook?

Thanks in advance for any help!

Nicolas