Setting up a Server for Joomla + StackIdeas Products

I am on the process of learning on setting up a new server for installing Joomla with EasySocial. So I am creating this topic here so I can use this as a source for general discussion with Stackidea community here on this topic and also to share my input as I learn more over the next few weeks. First off, here is the Server Set-up that I am planning to have:

For webserver:
Nginx + Pagespeed + MariaDB + Php 5.6 + Php-FPM + Zend Opcode + Memcache

For VM:
Debian 7 + iptables + Fail2Ban