I'm getting close to deploying an application built on Rails 3.1.x and started running some performance tests. After fiddling with `ab` for a bit, I'm seeing some very discouraging results yielding around 15 requests / second on Heroku. 

When testing locally I see similar results that really demonstrates that it's an app issue more than anything.

I'm running Unicorn, which is about 40% faster than Thin on Celadon Cedar. Further, I'm using the PGSQL shared db.

I'm hopeful that someone could share a laundry list or essentially a launch checklist that I should move through when prepping an app for production and moving into the need for speed tuning. So far I've **not** found a real concise list of actionable items to move through that seems to make sense given my situation.

Or if you have solid practical experience moving through issues like this, any input would be appreciated!