Linux has a number of high resolution timesources to choose from, the fastest TSC (Time Stamp Counter) unfortunately is not always reliable. Linux chooses TSC by default, and during boot checks for inconsistencies, if found it switches to a slower safe timesource. The slower time sources can be 10 to 30 times more expensive to query then the TSC timesource, and may have a measurable impact on Coherence performance. Note that Coherence and the underlying JVM are not aware of the timesource which the OS is utilizing. It is suggested that you check your system logs (/var/log/dmesg) to verify that the following is not present.

kernel: Losing too many ticks!
kernel: TSC cannot be used as a timesource.
kernel: Possible reasons for this are:
kernel:   You're running with Speedstep,
kernel:   You don't have DMA enabled for your hard disk (see hdparm),
kernel:   Incorrect TSC synchronization on an SMP system (see dmesg).
kernel: Falling back to a sane timesource now.

As the log messages suggest, this can be caused by a variable rate CPU (SpeedStep), having DMA disabled, or incorrect TSC synchronization on multi CPU machines. If present it is suggested that you work with your system administrator to identify and correct the cause allowing the TSC timesource to be utilized.

In some older versions of Linux there is a bug related to unsynchronized TSCs in multiprocessor systems. This bug can result in the clock apparently jumping forward by 4398 seconds, and then immediately jumping back to the correct time. This bug can trigger erroneous Coherence packet transmission timeouts resulting in nodes being incorrectly removed from the cluster. If you experience cluster disconnects along with a warning of a "4398 second" timeout it is suggested that you upgrade you Linux kernel. An example of such a log warning is as follows:

A potential communication problem has been detected. A packet has failed to be delivered (or acknowledged) after 4398 seconds ...

See http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/8/23/96, and https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=452185 for more details on this Linux TSC issue.