Also I would quickly return something to say the website is busy, and apply some kind of back pressure - since a process can handle only that much. But I have less experience there to say, though my surprise while working with Java used for web serving was that if the gc took more 1% (or was it 3%) of some time sliced window, then the whole process was killed (that's how the team/company has it set up) - e.g. "better fail fast, than serve slow" - the last one can quickly affect your business if it's relying on sub 100ms (~) response time.