mmm, I need a little bit more information about newtork topology and software architecture to try to help you. (And I ... because I'm a role player too .) )
If the scenario is: Application server with tomcat and apache: you can try to watch the apache error log under /var/log to see if there are some preblem there... or some "strange query"
normally a server crash (kernel panic and similar) write a lot of log...