Siege benchmark test #1: Benchmark mode
Centmin Mod Nginx auto installer script includes option to auto install Siege bench.
I ran basic Siege benchmark load test from a separate 4th VPS at a different web host (still located in same Chicago, IL as the 3x load balanced VPS) to test Centminmod.com index page and results are below. Centminmod.com runs on 3x 512MB / 1GB Burst OpenVZ based VPSes (web1-3) load balanced via Haproxy load balancer on web3. Haproxy evenly distributed all 15,000 transactions across the 3x VPS servers.

Siege benchmark run with 300 concurrency level and 50 repetitions to total 15,000 transactions. Keep in mind that from Siege FAQ, a 256 concurrency level with 1 second delay ( -c256 -d1 ) translates to roughly 47,000 unique visitors per day.
siege -b -c300 -r50 centminmod.com/index.html -m centminmod300 ** SIEGE 2.70 ** Preparing 300 concurrent users for battle. The server is now under siege... Transactions: 15000 hits Availability: 100.00 % Elapsed time: 20.20 secs Data transferred: 43.89 MB Response time: 0.27 secs Transaction rate: 742.57 trans/sec Throughput: 2.17 MB/sec Concurrency: 199.77 Successful transactions: 15000 Failed transactions: 0 Longest transaction: 7.43 Shortest transaction: 0.10
Haproxy load balancer + Centmin Mod Nginx web 3
top - 03:28:08 up 33 days, 14:10, 1 user, load average: 0.27, 0.09, 0.03 Tasks: 26 total, 1 running, 25 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie Cpu0 : 0.0%us, 0.0%sy, 0.0%ni,100.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Cpu1 : 0.0%us, 0.0%sy, 0.0%ni,100.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Mem: 1048576k total, 133636k used, 914940k free, 0k buffers Swap: 0k total, 0k used, 0k free, 0k cached
Centmin Mod Nginx web 1
top - 03:28:09 up 20 days, 22:29, 1 user, load average: 0.13, 0.04, 0.01 Tasks: 24 total, 1 running, 23 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie Cpu0 : 0.0%us, 0.0%sy, 0.0%ni,100.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Cpu1 : 0.0%us, 0.0%sy, 0.0%ni,100.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Mem: 1048576k total, 126200k used, 922376k free, 0k buffers Swap: 0k total, 0k used, 0k free, 0k cached
Centmin Mod Nginx web 2. Web2 didn't even flinch!
top - 03:28:09 up 9 days, 6:41, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.01 Tasks: 28 total, 1 running, 27 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie Cpu0 : 0.0%us, 0.2%sy, 0.0%ni, 99.8%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Cpu1 : 0.0%us, 0.3%sy, 0.0%ni, 99.7%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Mem: 1048576k total, 128308k used, 920268k free, 0k buffers Swap: 0k total, 0k used, 0k free, 0k cached
Nginx worker connections and processes configuration - nginx.conf for all 3x 512MB / 1GB Burst OpenVZ based VPSes (web1-3)
user nginx nginx; worker_processes 1; worker_rlimit_nofile 51200; error_log logs/error.log; pid logs/nginx.pid; events { worker_connections 32768; use epoll; }
Other Siege benchmark tests
- Siege benchmark test #1: Benchmark mode (3x VPS load balanced)
- Siege benchmark test #2: Internet mode (3x VPS load balanced)
- Siege benchmark test #3: Internet mode (4x VPS load balanced with adjusted Haproxy distribution weights)