Why doesn't the server just drop incoming requests until it's able to handle them again? As I mentioned in another comment, this is what routers do. edit I had

Why doesn't the server just drop incoming requests until it's able to handle them again? As I mentioned in another comment, this is what routers do. edit I hadn't noticed this at the bottom of the article: > they could have rewritten their web site code so it didn't send the machines into a many-GB-deep swap fest. They could have done that without getting any hosting people involved. They didn't