A method (600; 700) for performing a switchover operation comprising: establishing, by a storage server, an internode communication link between a first computing node and a second computing node hosted within a cloud computing environment, the first computing node configured to provide clients with access to a first set of resources within the cloud computing environment, the second computing node configured to provide clients with access to a second set of resources within the cloud computing environment (604; 704); configuring the first computing node and the second computing node to provide operational state information to a cloud environment node state provider or a cloud state service of the cloud computing environment (606; 706); the method being characterized in that responsive to identifying a loss of communication over the internode communication link: querying the cloud environment node state provider for first operational state information of the first computing node (608; 708); and responsive to the first operational state information indicating a failure of the first computing node, performing a switchover operation from the first computing node to the second computing node for providing clients with failover access to the first set of resources, previously accessible to clients through the first computing node, based upon the second computing node being a failure recovery partner for the first computing node (610; 710). establishing, by a storage server, an internode communication link between a first computing node and a second computing node hosted within a cloud computing environment, the first computing node configured to provide clients with access to a first set of resources within the cloud computing environment, the second computing node configured to provide clients with access to a second set of resources within the cloud computing environment (604; 704); configuring the first computing node and the second computing node to provide operational state information to a cloud environment node state provider or a cloud state service of the cloud computing environment (606; 706); the method being characterized in that responsive to identifying a loss of communication over the internode communication link: querying the cloud environment node state provider for first operational state information of the first computing node (608; 708); and responsive to the first operational state information indicating a failure of the first computing node, performing a switchover operation from the first computing node to the second computing node for providing clients with failover access to the first set of resources, previously accessible to clients through the first computing node, based upon the second computing node being a failure recovery partner for the first computing node (610; 710). querying the cloud environment node state provider for first operational state information of the first computing node (608; 708); and responsive to the first operational state information indicating a failure of the first computing node, performing a switchover operation from the first computing node to the second computing node for providing clients with failover access to the first set of resources, previously accessible to clients through the first computing node, based upon the second computing node being a failure recovery partner for the first computing node (610; 710).