1. simply activity cluster planner for all-producers-to-all-consumers kind of connectors; 2. lower the NC task threads' priority
diff --git a/pregelix-core/src/main/java/edu/uci/ics/pregelix/core/util/PregelixHyracksIntegrationUtil.java b/pregelix-core/src/main/java/edu/uci/ics/pregelix/core/util/PregelixHyracksIntegrationUtil.java
index f4b26cb..279de61 100644
--- a/pregelix-core/src/main/java/edu/uci/ics/pregelix/core/util/PregelixHyracksIntegrationUtil.java
+++ b/pregelix-core/src/main/java/edu/uci/ics/pregelix/core/util/PregelixHyracksIntegrationUtil.java
@@ -61,9 +61,9 @@
         ccConfig.defaultMaxJobAttempts = 0;
         ccConfig.jobHistorySize = 1;
         ccConfig.profileDumpPeriod = -1;
-        ccConfig.heartbeatPeriod = 5000;
-        ccConfig.maxHeartbeatLapsePeriods = 8;
-
+        ccConfig.heartbeatPeriod = 1000;
+        ccConfig.maxHeartbeatLapsePeriods = 10;
+        
         // cluster controller
         cc = new ClusterControllerService(ccConfig);
         cc.start();