If Apache is eating up all of your RAM with children, you should really look into using nginx or Varnish out front (depending on how cacheable the content is).

If Apache is eating up all of your RAM with children, you should really look into using nginx or Varnish out front (depending on how cacheable the content is). You'll see your need for more Apache children drop considerably, due to the spoon feeding problem. Hope that helps, have really enjoyed reading your posts.