Sun Java System Web Server hangs while handling a large number of images files

The web container that hosts Access Manager hangs while handling a large number of image files. The following errors are display in the Web Server errors.log

IO error:
           "java.io.IOException: WEB8004: Error flushing the output stream
            java.io.IOException: WEB8001: Write failed "

These entries indicate that Access Manager server was not involved in the hang of the web server but instead the root cause was due to the an IO error.