diff --git a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs-client/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/DataStreamer.java b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs-client/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/DataStreamer.java
index a1161255beb..b406c674f28 100644
--- a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs-client/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/DataStreamer.java
+++ b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs-client/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/DataStreamer.java
@@ -139,6 +139,7 @@ static Socket createSocketForPipeline(final DatanodeInfo first,
     NetUtils.connect(sock, isa, client.getRandomLocalInterfaceAddr(),
         conf.getSocketTimeout());
     sock.setSoTimeout(timeout);
+    sock.setKeepAlive(true);
     if (conf.getSocketSendBufferSize() > 0) {
       sock.setSendBufferSize(conf.getSocketSendBufferSize());
     }
diff --git a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
index cf6c63826fa..aee4defa67e 100644
--- a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
@@ -856,6 +856,9 @@ Release 2.8.0 - UNRELEASED
     HDFS-9514. TestDistributedFileSystem.testDFSClientPeerWriteTimeout failing;
     exception being swallowed. (Wei-Chiu Chuang via Yongjun Zhang)
 
+    HDFS-8894. Set SO_KEEPALIVE on DN server sockets.
+    (Kanaka Kumar Avvaru via wang)
+
   OPTIMIZATIONS
 
     HDFS-8026. Trace FSOutputSummer#writeChecksumChunks rather than
diff --git a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/datanode/DataXceiver.java b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/datanode/DataXceiver.java
index e463508c793..8220d6c07a0 100644
--- a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/datanode/DataXceiver.java
+++ b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/datanode/DataXceiver.java
@@ -710,6 +710,7 @@ public void writeBlock(final ExtendedBlock block,
               (HdfsConstants.WRITE_TIMEOUT_EXTENSION * targets.length);
           NetUtils.connect(mirrorSock, mirrorTarget, timeoutValue);
           mirrorSock.setSoTimeout(timeoutValue);
+          mirrorSock.setKeepAlive(true);
           if (dnConf.getTransferSocketSendBufferSize() > 0) {
             mirrorSock.setSendBufferSize(
                 dnConf.getTransferSocketSendBufferSize());
@@ -1127,7 +1128,8 @@ public void replaceBlock(final ExtendedBlock block,
         proxySock = datanode.newSocket();
         NetUtils.connect(proxySock, proxyAddr, dnConf.socketTimeout);
         proxySock.setSoTimeout(dnConf.socketTimeout);
-        
+        proxySock.setKeepAlive(true);
+
         OutputStream unbufProxyOut = NetUtils.getOutputStream(proxySock,
             dnConf.socketWriteTimeout);
         InputStream unbufProxyIn = NetUtils.getInputStream(proxySock);