: Announcing new website with a countdown: What load peak I have to deal with? My corporate website is going to change: the new one is ready on a different server. I have to put a countdown

@Correia994

The load will not change unless you did a big restructure, have untested functions/queries, and/or expect folks to horde the new site. The start load will be amplified but only to generate things like image caches (which you can do before the counter ends).

A good way to generate caches and do a basic load test is using something like Xenu. You can set it up to run multiple threads without throttling, or you can run it on multiple machines. The goal would be to crash your new site so let er rip along at a pace above your norm 40req/sec until you start encountering errors, 5xx, or query timeouts. By watching top in your *nix you can see what kind of averages are happening. You can then compare this side by side with your live top averages during the test(s). Remember you can press c while in top to expose paths to scripts. This may help clarify what is using what, when, and where.

There are also sweet load testeroos like loadimpact.com, but you gotta pay to get more crush. The free version of that app bursts from 5 to 40req/sec using something like 20 users. Xenu might stay "in pages" better too -- I see loadimpact requested assets and things (which is a significant less load than a full page request)

Finally, there is NewRelic which may help during the load tests and after the switch. You may be able to better monitor what is going on and it could alert you if SHTF some late night while you're all cozy in bed.

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