Solana: get RPC calls faster

Optimizing Solana RPC calls with reduced latency

As a Solana developer, you are aware of the importance of reducing latency in your application. The Remote Procedure Call (RPC) mechanism is one of the most critical components that allows users to remotely interact with your smart contracts. However, even with well-optimized code, there is often room for improvement in terms of RPC call timing.

In this article, we will explore ways to reduce Solana RPC call latency from 1 second to 200 milliseconds to 600 milliseconds or more.

Current Status

Current best practice on the Phosphorus network (the popular Salt network) suggests that RPC calls take about 1 second to resolve. This is a relatively standard value and is widely discussed among developers.

Benchmarking Results

To better understand how to optimize your RPC calls, let’s look at some benchmarking results:

• On the Phosphorus Network, an example RPC call using the photon-sol' library takes about 1 second to resolve.

• A similar RPC call with optimized code on Solana (using thesolana-rpclibrary) resolves in about 200 milliseconds.

Why the difference?

The primary reason for this difference is the overhead introduced by the network. When an RPC call is made, it's not just the time it takes to call the function itself; there are additional latency factors at play:

• Network latency: Data travels from your client to the Solana node and back.

• Transaction processing

  

  : Before the RPC call can proceed, the Solana node must process the transaction and verify its integrity.

Optimization strategies

To reduce latency in your RPC calls, consider the following strategies:

• Usesolana-rpcinstead ofphoton-sol: Thesolana-rpclibrary is optimized for performance and reduces latency.

• Implement a custom RPC handler: Instead of relying on the built-insolana-rpc’ library, you can create a custom handler that uses your own transaction processing logic to optimize latency.

• Use photon-sol with solana-vm: The photon-sol library uses the WebAssembly (WASM) VM, which can help reduce latency compared to the native Solana node runtime.

Example Code

Here’s an example of how you can implement a custom RPC handler using solana-rpc:

use salt_program::{

    account_info::{next_account_info, AccountInfo},

    entry point,

    message

};

use solana_rpc::{Request, Response};


entrypoint!(process_rpc);

fn process_rpc(args: &Request) -> Result {

    // Your custom logic to optimize RPC latency

    let transaction = account_info::get_account_by_index(&args.args.account_id).unwrap();

    // Processing the transaction

    OK(Response::new())

}

In this example, we create a custom function process_rpc that takes an account_id argument. The function processes the transaction using your own logic and returns a Response.

Conclusion

Reducing the latency of RPC calls on Solana requires some knowledge of network dynamics, optimization strategies, and custom implementation techniques. By leveraging the solana-rpc library and implementing custom handlers, or by using optimized libraries like photon-sol, you can significantly reduce latency in your application.

Don’t forget to thoroughly benchmark your code before making any changes to ensure optimal performance. Happy coding!

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