Alibaba Cloud has introduced a cutting-edge infrastructure designed to accelerate Solana RPC nodes, significantly reducing latency for high-frequency trading activities.
This new architecture leverages clustered Elastic Compute Service (ECS) placement groups, utilizes 9th-generation dedicated hosts, incorporates the Elastic RDMA Interface (ERI), and employs high-IOPS storage solutions to ensure rapid and efficient RPC access with minimal network hops.
According to Alibaba Cloud, their 9th-gen dedicated host instances outperform previous generations by 20% compared to the 8th-gen and by 30% over the 7th-gen models. These improvements are powered by Intel GNR processors alongside advanced features such as ERI and Intel’s security technologies including TDX, SGX, and TME. Additionally, these hosts support CIPU 2.0 technology that delivers dual-channel bandwidth of up to 200G for enhanced data transfer speeds.
The platform also integrates elastic ephemeral disks capable of delivering up to one million IOPS with throughput reaching four gigabytes per second per disk. These disks offer local drive-level read/write performance while allowing flexible scaling across multiple instances—perfectly suited for expanding Solana node infrastructures.
This development aligns with the launch of the Solana Foundation’s Trade on Solana initiative aimed at providing professional trading firms seamless access to market data and operational services.
Optimizing Solana RPC Node Performance
Performance evaluations conducted on bare-metal servers located in Singapore demonstrated remarkable latency reductions: getSlot RPC calls decreased from approximately twenty-five milliseconds down to ten milliseconds when utilizing Alibaba Cloud combined with ZAN technology.
Similarly, getBlock requests involving four-megabyte payloads saw latency improvements from two hundred forty-five milliseconds reduced to one hundred ninety-five milliseconds—an essential enhancement for developers and traders requiring swift blockchain data retrievals.
The RPC nodes operate through Alibaba’s private backbone network rather than relying on congested public internet routes. This setup guarantees users a more reliable connection characterized by lower delays between clients and the broader Solana cluster environment.
A company representative commented: “We directly provide hosted RPC nodes backed by proven operational experience. Partnering with Zestem underlines our capability in deploying production-ready solutions.”
The configuration minimizes intermediary hops between end-users and full nodes; developers are encouraged to select full nodes exhibiting highest block heights among over one hundred active options available globally. Data indicates that eighty percent of transactions confirm within two slots (~800 ms), maintaining an impressive on-chain success rate near ninety-nine point nine percent (99.9%).
Industry Impact & Market Response
This demonstration arrives amid growing institutional interest in enhancing their engagement with Solana’s trading ecosystem. Notably, SushiSwap recently expanded its platform onto Solana enabling $SOL token swaps along with cross-chain trade capabilities integrated into its user interface.
Despite these advancements boosting infrastructure robustness around $SOL assets, market prices experienced a decline exceeding four point five percent (-4.5%), settling near eighty dollars fifty-two cents ($80.52) at press time.