When to show a fail whale?

Question

How or when do I know my Web Application can't handle the traffic/activities and show a "Fail Whale" kind of page?

Answer 1

You could try sys_getloadavg() if you just want to show an error when the server is under high load.

<?php
    $load = sys_getloadavg();
    $max_load = 95;

    if($load[0] >= $max_load){
        // Show failwhale
    }else{
        // Do stuff
    }
?>