How to get Amazon ELB to handle large traffic ramps?
Solution 1:
Answering my own question. I happened to come across this thread (https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=76834) that made an obscure reference to something called ELB Pre-Warm. I called up Amazon AWS Support and was told that it was indeed a service they offered, you just have to have a support plan (Gold level if you want to call them). They set everything up for me and I was able to run a successful load test with a ramp from 0-10K QPS in 5 minutes.