A method and apparatus for realizing application high availability. The application is installed on both a first node and a second node, the first node being used as an active node, and the second node being used as a passive node. The method includes: monitoring access operations to files by an application during its execution on the active node; replicating the monitored updates to the file by the application from the active node to a storage device accessible to the passive node if the application performs updates to a file during the access operations; sniffing the execution of the application on the active node; and switching the active node to the second node and initiating the application on the second node in response to sniffing a failure in the execution of the application on the active node.