Blog/Article
Why bare metal servers are ideal for solana validators
Solana is becoming an increasingly vital player in the Web3 ecosystem, and it greatly benefits from bare metal servers. Dedicated servers provide the highest level of infrastructure, which is crucial for ensuring that validators operate with speed and reliability.
Summary
By the end of this article, you’ll understand how those leveraging Solana can take advantage of robust hardware to guarantee that every transaction is processed efficiently and securely.
Understanding Solana
To grasp how Solana validators benefit from bare metal servers, it’s essential to first cover some foundational concepts. Blockchain technology has been around for years, but its complexity often makes it seem like an alien concept. So, let's break it down.
What is Blockchain?
At its core, a blockchain is a decentralized ledger—a distributed record of transactions, much like a digital accounting book.
Unlike traditional ledgers that are controlled by a single entity, blockchain data is stored across a global network of computers, ensuring transparency and security.
Transactions are grouped into blocks and validated by network participants known as nodes before being permanently recorded.
Several blockchain protocols exist, each with its own structure and use cases. Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana are among the most widely known.
While some blockchains focus primarily on financial transactions, others—like Solana—are designed to support applications and smart contracts.
How Does Cryptocurrency Fit In?
Cryptocurrency is a digital form of money secured through cryptographic techniques.
Unlike traditional banking systems that rely on central authorities, cryptocurrencies operate on decentralized networks where transactions are verified by participants rather than a single organization.
On Solana, the native cryptocurrency is SOL, which plays a key role in network operations, including staking and transaction processing.
Coins vs. Tokens
Every blockchain has a native coin, which serves as the primary medium of exchange. Tokens, on the other hand, are digital assets created on top of existing blockchain protocols.
Solana’s ecosystem allows developers to create and deploy custom tokens that serve various purposes, from governance to powering decentralized applications (dApps).
Smart Contracts and dApps
A smart contract is a self-executing contract where terms are written directly into code.
Once predefined conditions are met, the contract is automatically executed without requiring intermediaries.
This functionality allows developers to build decentralized applications (dApps) that perform a wide range of tasks, from financial transactions to digital asset management.
DApps operate on blockchain networks and enable users to interact with decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms, NFT marketplaces, and more, all without relying on traditional third parties.
Web3 and Decentralization
For many, Web3 represents the next evolution of the internet, emphasizing decentralization and user ownership.
Unlike Web 2.0, where data and platforms are controlled by a handful of corporations, Web3 leverages blockchain technology to create open, trustless systems.
This shift empowers users by giving them more control over their digital interactions, data, and assets.
Decentralization can offer several advantages:
Financial inclusion for individuals without access to traditional banking systems
Reduced transaction fees by eliminating intermediaries
Increased network security by removing single points of failure
Community-driven decision-making, allowing users to participate in governance
Understanding bare metal servers within the Solana ecosystem
A bare metal server is a physical computer dedicated entirely to a single user, providing direct access to the server's hardware without any virtualization layers.
Unlike shared or virtualized environments, where multiple users share the same physical resources through a hypervisor, bare metal servers allocate all hardware resources—such as CPU, memory, and storage—to one tenant.
This exclusive access allows for optimal performance, enhanced security, and greater control over the server's configuration.
In the context of blockchain networks like Solana, utilizing bare metal servers ensures that validators can operate without the software overhead or resource contention associated with virtualized environments.
This setup is crucial for maintaining the high-speed transaction processing and reliability that Solana is known for.
Running a Solana validator is not just about setting up a node and letting it run—it’s a high-stakes endeavor where speed, reliability, and efficiency determine success.
Imagine an independent validator eager to contribute to the network. The initial setup seems straightforward, and a cloud-based virtual machine appears to be a cost-effective choice.
Transactions flow, rewards trickle in, and everything seems stable—at first. But as Solana’s network activity intensifies, the validator starts noticing missed leader slots, increased hardware contention, and unpredictable performance fluctuations.
The culprit? Virtualization overhead and shared resources. Cloud instances, while flexible, are at the mercy of noisy neighbors and varying network latencies. Even the most optimized configurations struggle to keep up with the network’s millisecond-level demands.
Faced with declining efficiency and reduced staking rewards, the validator makes a critical decision: switching to bare metal.
With dedicated resources, lower latency, and direct hardware access, their node immediately gains an edge. Transaction confirmations are faster, performance is consistent, and there are no surprises from neighboring workloads.
Bare metal infrastructure ensures the validator is always operating at peak efficiency, maximizing rewards while contributing to the stability and security of the Solana ecosystem.
Latitude.sh, a Web3-friendly infrastructure company
Decentralization in blockchain isn't just about distributing control—it’s also about physical infrastructure. Where nodes are located impacts network latency, resilience, and even decentralization itself, of course.
Many blockchain validators rely heavily on cloud providers, often clustered in North America and Europe, leading to potential centralization risks.
However, some Web3 companies are actively working to diversify infrastructure deployment, using bare metal servers in geographically strategic locations.
A prime example is xLabs, a Web3 company operating across North and South America. As a major contributor to the Wormhole protocol, xLabs runs over 100 nodes across 35 different blockchains.
While they initially hosted their infrastructure on cloud services like AWS and Google Cloud, they later adopted a hybrid approach—deploying key nodes on bare metal for improved performance and cost efficiency.
One critical shift was in their Solana validator operations. Rather than following the common path of hosting nodes in US or European data centers, xLabs chose to deploy them in Argentina using Latitude.sh’s bare metal servers. This decision was driven by three key factors:
Cost-efficiency: Running Solana nodes in the cloud was prohibitively expensive due to high CPU and memory demands. Bare metal offered a more economical solution without sacrificing performance.
Geographic decentralization: By placing validators in South America, xLabs contributed to a more distributed and resilient blockchain network.
Reliability and uptime: The move resulted in 100% uptime and 0% slot skips since deployment, ensuring the validator's effectiveness in producing blocks—an essential metric for Solana’s performance.
Beyond cost and performance, the geographic placement of nodes can influence the speed and efficiency of blockchain transactions.
Lower latency between validators enhances transaction finality and reduces risks associated with network congestion.
For xLabs, choosing bare metal in Argentina was as much about strategic decentralization as it was about infrastructure optimization.
Their case demonstrates that Web3 companies looking to improve network performance and decentralization must consider both infrastructure type (cloud vs. bare metal) and location.
As blockchain ecosystems continue to grow, the ability to strategically deploy high-performance nodes in underserved regions will play a crucial role in shaping the future of decentralized networks.
The Need for Speed in Blockchain
Solana is a high-throughput blockchain designed to process transactions quickly and efficiently.
Unlike traditional blockchains that struggle with network congestion and slow transaction speeds, Solana's architecture is built to scale while maintaining low fees and fast finality.
A key factor behind Solana's speed is its ability to process thousands of transactions in parallel. Instead of handling transactions one at a time, Solana uses a highly optimized system that allows multiple transactions to be validated simultaneously.
This approach significantly reduces bottlenecks and improves overall efficiency.
Another crucial component of Solana's performance is its method of transaction validation. By utilizing an advanced Proof-of-Stake (PoS) mechanism, Solana eliminates the energy-intensive mining process used in Proof-of-Work (PoW) blockchains like Bitcoin.
This not only reduces costs but also allows the network to finalize transactions much faster.
Additionally, Solana minimizes delays by optimizing how data is transmitted across the network.
Instead of relying on traditional methods that can slow down transaction propagation, Solana uses a highly efficient communication structure that ensures data moves swiftly between validators. This helps maintain high throughput even under heavy demand.
By integrating these innovations, Solana is capable of processing up to 65,000 transactions per second, making it one of the fastest and most scalable blockchains available today.
This makes it an ideal platform for decentralized applications (dApps), financial services, and other use cases that require speed, efficiency, and low costs.
Validator Requirements: The Role of Bare Metal
Bare metal servers play a vital role in enhancing the performance and scalability of high-throughput blockchains like Solana.
These dedicated servers provide the raw computing power and low-latency network configurations necessary to support rapid transaction processing and efficient data propagation.
One of the key advantages of bare metal in blockchain environments is its ability to handle large-scale workloads with high efficiency. For instance, running a Solana validator requires substantial hardware resources to maintain optimal performance.
The recommended specifications include a modern CPU with at least 12 cores and 24 threads, a minimum of 128GB RAM (preferably 256GB or more for future-proofing), NVMe SSDs with high IOPS capable of handling 1TB+ of rapidly growing ledger data, and a reliable network connection with at least 1Gbps bandwidth and low latency.
All Gen4 instances available at Latitude.sh can address these requirements with ease, ensuring validators can keep up with Solana's high-performance requirements, including rapid parallel block processing and transaction validation.
Moreover, operating a Solana validator requires a significant initial capital investment. Validators need to stake a minimum amount of SOL to participate in consensus, and the stake amount directly affects voting rewards.
Currently, to be consistently selected for leader slots and generate meaningful rewards, validators typically need several thousand SOL in stake, either self-delegated or from delegators.
Overall, the economics of running a validator must account for both hardware costs and stake requirements, making it a significant investment that requires careful planning and resource allocation.
By leveraging bare metal servers, Web3 companies can save up to 70% of their cloud bill when compared to hosting the same workloads in virtualized servers at hyperscalers, such as AWS.
Additionally, bare metal servers offer a level of security and isolation that virtualized environments cannot match.
Network latency plays a crucial role in validator performance. Solana's rapid block time means validators need to propagate blocks within milliseconds. Ideally, network latency between validators should be under 100ms to ensure efficient block propagation and prevent missed slots.
This is why geographic location, while important for decentralization, must be balanced with network topology considerations. Validators need to maintain excellent connectivity with a significant portion of the network to participate effectively in consensus.
At Latitude.sh, validators can get the best of both: they can deploy bare metal servers across 16 major global cities while leveraging carrier-grade network topology on each site.
And by dedicating physical hardware to their blockchain operations, they minimize risks associated with multi-tenant systems, making them an ideal choice for maintaining network integrity and performance.
With optimized resource allocation, enhanced networking capabilities, and predictable performance, bare metal servers become essential for sustaining the speed and efficiency that define Solana.
In other words, for high-performance blockchain environments, bare metal isn’t just an option—it’s a necessity.
So get started today and maximize your performance as a Solana Validator with Latitude.sh's powerful bare metal servers.