You're missing a fundamental difference between degraded service and being out of service: if an overloaded server handles its maximum number of clients but doe

You're missing a fundamental difference between degraded service and being out of service: if an overloaded server handles its maximum number of clients but doesn't crash, then you have time to bring up additional servers to share the load. If an overloaded server crashes instead of limiting the number of clients it serves, you have to staunch the flow of clients further upstream before you can bring more servers up to share the load. This is what the GGGP is saying, and it seems like everyone (including you) are missing his point. Degrading service, or more accurately, serving the maximum number of clients you can serve and no more is absolutely not the same thing as being down. Failing/crashing rather than limiting the number of clients you serve is absolutely not established best practice. It's poor practice, in fact.