I'm pretty sure it's because you're using an AWS micro instance and trying to use tomcat java & mysql. Micro instances aren't good at that type of thing -- the

I'm pretty sure it's because you're using an AWS micro instance and trying to use tomcat java & mysql. Micro instances aren't good at that type of thing -- the instance is probably IO bound because it either a.) ran out of memory and is swapping or b.) disk access is being governed by AWS (because it's a micro instance)