Investigate caching, both at http level (and put a caching reverse proxy, e.g. varnish, in front of your webapp) and at component levels. Ask yourself which da

Investigate caching, both at http level (and put a caching reverse proxy, e.g. varnish, in front of your webapp) and at component levels. Ask yourself which database queries are essential for the basic experience and which are for enhancing the experience beyond that. It may be worth doing without the second class of queries (or being more willing to use out of date cached values) when your website is under heavy load. Ensure your sshd runs at a higher priority than your webserver/database/etc, so you have a chance of fixing things should your site actually crash and burn in the end.