[Twisted-Python] Problems with long term connections?

[John Pote]

Hi everyone,
I am putting together a number of servers that will all communicate with 
each other every 5 or 10 minutes via  TCP/IP connections. It occured to 
me that once a connection has been established I might as well leave it 
open permanently. Are there any problems/side effects of doing this? Is 
it better policy to close and re-open the connection every now and then?

Also am I correct in assuming that if a computer at one end of a 
TCP/IPconnection crashes or otherwise becomes unavailable the twisted 
program at the other end will only know this when it attempts to send a 
packet to the now crashed computer and, having no reply, gets a timeout.

Thanks for your help,
John