Das Problem konnte mehr oder minder gelöst werden.
Zumindest trat das Problem seit folgenden Änderungen der Apache Konfiguration nicht mehr auf.
Konfiguration alt:
<IfModule prefork.c>
# number of server processes to start
StartServers 5
# minimum number of server processes which are kept spare
MinSpareServers 10
# maximum number of server processes which are kept spare
MaxSpareServers 20
# highest possible MaxClients setting for the lifetime of the Apache process.
ServerLimit 25
# maximum number of server processes allowed to start
MaxClients 25
# maximum number of requests a server process serves
MaxRequestsPerChild 0
</IfModule>
KeepAlive On
MaxKeepAliveRequests 0
KeepAliveTimeout 15
Konfiguration neu:
<IfModule prefork.c>
# number of server processes to start
StartServers 15
# minimum number of server processes which are kept spare
MinSpareServers 15
# maximum number of server processes which are kept spare
MaxSpareServers 30
# highest possible MaxClients setting for the lifetime of the Apache process.
ServerLimit 50
# maximum number of server processes allowed to start
MaxClients 50
# maximum number of requests a server process serves
MaxRequestsPerChild 3000
</IfModule>
KeepAlive On
MaxKeepAliveRequests 3000
KeepAliveTimeout 15