Our current site is easily DOS'd. I can perform an AB test against it from Apache and it disappears for about 5-10 minutes. We have been having problems with others DOSing the site - to the point where we had to shut it down for 8 hours (recommended by the server host).

The server is hosted by Rackspace. They recommended shutting it down for 8 hours, which when we brought it back up the attacked resumed. 

We setup cloud flare for the DNS, however after an AB test with 58,000 requests sent the site was offline again (not as long as originally).

Rackspace is not offering anymore suggestions, and I need to figure out something to do for the time being, switching server hosts is not an option at this point and time (lead developer is leaving in 1 week for a new position).

This specific attack created alot of connections in the mysql database with the command `sleep`.

Does anyone have any suggestions or recommendations on ways to protect again DOS attacks?

Would increasing the RAM on the virtual host help at all?