For anyone who's interested, the following paper on load shedding is also a good read: https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.828/2010/readings/mogul96usenix.pdf https://

For anyone who's interested, the following paper on load shedding is also a good read: https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.828/2010/readings/mogul96usenix.pdf https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.828/2010/readings/mogul96usenix... The paper basically identifies the problem as a "livelock". You have a system that receives so many requests that instead of making any real progress, it tries to move those requests through different queues (Section 6). If you're building a distributed system (say SOA), I find that load shedding also has the nice property that it gives the system's clients immediate feedback -- rather than having the client wait for a long time and make guesses.