Systems, methods, and computer program products for managing a consensus group in a distributed computing cluster, by determining that an instance of an authority module executing on a first node, of a consensus group of nodes in the distributed computing cluster, has failed; and adding, by an instance of the authority module on a second node of the consensus group, a new node to the consensus group to replace the first node. The new node is a node in the computing cluster that was not a member of the consensus group at the time the instance of the authority module executing on the first node is determined to have failed.