Java EE (Java Enterprise Edition) General Discussion

I have been saddled with the task of making the transport layer we are using fault tolerant to server outage. We are using JMS for our transport layer. I have been able to make our use of JMS fault tolerant to JMS server outage by using persistent messages, durable subscribers, etc when it is used in a asynchronous messaging model. However I have since learned that parts of our application use JMS in a synchronous messaging model (using both a send and receive queue). Given the number of failure modes this introduces, trying to make the messaging transport tolerant to server failure (when used for synchronous send receive), is not possible I believe.
My suggestion to my manger was to pick the right tool for the job. If you want synchronous communication use RMI and the application layer can handle the exceptions thrown by transport failure appropriately (I even referenced the �End to End Argument in System design�). This did not go down to well�
My Question then is:
Has anyone else out there implemented synchronous communication over JMS and made its use fault tolerant to JMS server failure? Either by using redundant JMS server or some such approach.