---
title: "Overload Protection"
canonical: "https://support.apollographql.com/space/ETKB/655622211/Overload%20Protection"
format: markdown
---
A GraphQL server can implement **overload protection **to help it remain available while under high load. With overload protection, a server monitors its resource usage and begins shedding incoming traffic whenever that usage approaches a performance-degrading limit (such as running out of memory).

As you add capabilities and users to your supergraph, you might introduce new usage patterns that add unexpectedly high load. Overload protection helps reduce the impact of these spikes while you optimize your supergraph to eliminate them entirely.

[Learn more on the dev docs](https://www.apollographql.com/docs/technotes/TN0005-overload-protection/).