I think instead of deducing this from "no instance found", we should deduce it from whether there are peers or not.
Whether there are peers or not, can be asserted using "peerEurekaNodes" instance variable.

So, if there are no peers, just bail out, don't even get to the sync up loop.

Now, in order to do this, we have to allow starting up with no discovery servers configured In discovery client).

What do you think?