1. A system, comprising: a cluster comprising a plurality of nodes, wherein each node comprises a server configured to execute a distributed application component, and wherein each node is coupled to a network; and a commonly accessible storage coupled to the network and configured to store cluster membership information, wherein the commonly accessible storage is accessible by each of the plurality of nodes of the cluster; a joining node configured to join the cluster, wherein to join the cluster, the joining node is configured on startup to: access the commonly accessible storage to retrieve the cluster membership information; and request a peer-to-peer connection to every one of the plurality of current nodes of the cluster based on the cluster membership information, wherein, in response to a connection failure, the joining node is further configured to retry its attempt to establish a connection with a cluster node a specified number of times.