Remote clients obtain a reference to the remote RMI-P4 objects on the server side by getting an InitialContext instance on a particular server process. Subsequent requests by this client are sent to the same server process.

In the event of server failure, the client request is dispatched to another server process where it gets a new InitialContext instance.

There is also a mechanism that migrates the instance of the server-side remote object from the failed server process to another one. The same mechanism is the basis for the implementation of EJB failover.

More information: RMI-P4 Overview