A quorum service within a cluster infrastructure layer of a cluster environment comprising a plurality of nodes automatically triggers at least one automated fencing operation integrated within the quorum service, to reliably maintain a node usability state of each node of the plurality of nodes indicating an availability of each node to control and access at least one shared resource of the cluster. The quorum service reports the node usability state of each node as a cluster health status to at least one distributed application within an application layer of the cluster environment, to provide a reliable cluster health status of the plurality of nodes to the at least one distributed application for a failover of said at least one shared resource from control by a failed node from among the plurality of nodes to another node from among the plurality of nodes.