Magic Eden, one of the top NFT marketplaces, moved their Solana validator infrastructure from AWS to Latitude.sh, cutting costs by nearly 90% without losing any of the speed or reliability they need. 

They were able to integrate smoothly with their existing AWS-based Kafka clusters while keeping everything running seamlessly. And if you’re wondering how it all started…

The Story Behind the Migration

When Joe Fuentes, Infrastructure Manager at Magic Eden, first looked at their Solana validator costs on AWS, the numbers were hard to ignore. They were spending roughly ten times more than necessary to run the infrastructure that powered their platform's ability to process Solana network events. 

For a company that needed robust validator infrastructure to service events through Kafka, this represented a significant drain on resources with poor return on investment.

Magic Eden's infrastructure team of five members, spread across the US and Asia, faced a classic challenge in the blockchain space: how to maintain the performance and reliability required for a major NFT marketplace while managing the substantial costs of validator infrastructure. 

The validators weren't even being used for traditional staking purposes. They were primarily running Geyser plugins to process network events, making the high AWS costs even more difficult to justify.

Finding the Right Solution

The search for an alternative began with thorough market research. Fuentes took a methodical approach, surveying publicly-known validators to see where the majority of high-performing ones were located. 

The pattern was clear: most of the validators that performed well were hosted at Latitude.sh. Industry vendors also flagged Latitude.sh as being particularly good to work with, giving Fuentes the confidence to move forward with the migration.

What made Latitude.sh particularly attractive wasn't just the cost savings, but the comprehensive infrastructure capabilities. Unlike typical bare metal providers, Latitude.sh offered a unique combination of bare metal performance with cloud-like tooling. 

"I like the dashboard. I like that you all have a focus on Terraform as well... Being able to SSH into a serial console is not typically something that I find with a vendor that also has Terraform and APIs and stuff like that. So I feel like it's a pretty wide array of capabilities offered to me," he said.

The platform provided Terraform support, APIs, dashboard management, and even SSH access to serial consoles: features that aren't typically found together in the bare metal hosting space.

The Technical Challenge

One critical requirement made the migration complex: Magic Eden's validators needed to connect directly to their private Kafka clusters in AWS. These clusters weren't public-facing, which meant any solution would need to maintain secure, private connectivity between the new validator infrastructure and the existing AWS environment.

This is where Latitude.sh's Cloud Gateway service became essential. This direct connection capability allowed Magic Eden to maintain their existing operational model, connecting the Latitude.sh-hosted validators directly to their Kafka clusters in AWS. 

This hybrid approach meant they could access the cost benefits of bare metal infrastructure while preserving their established workflows and security requirements.

Implementation and Results

The migration proved to be remarkably smooth. Magic Eden moved their Solana validators to Latitude.sh's bare metal servers, where they now run alongside a load-balanced system of multiple RPC providers. This setup allows the team to optimize based on credit usage and availability while maintaining the reliability their marketplace demands.

The cost impact was immediate and dramatic. Where AWS validators had been costing approximately ten times more than necessary, Latitude.sh's bare metal infrastructure delivered the same capabilities at a fraction of the cost. 

From an operational standpoint, the transition maintained all of Magic Eden's existing processes. The validators continued to connect directly to Kafka just as they had before, but now with significantly better economics. 

The team found the onboarding process straightforward and appreciated the comprehensive tooling that made Latitude.sh feel like "just another cloud provider" despite being bare metal infrastructure.

"I particularly like connecting with your team. I found them very helpful. There's really never been any problem between us. The support cases that I've opened, very few of them have been worked in a timely manner," he said.

A Partnership That Works

Three years into the partnership, the relationship between Magic Eden and Latitude.sh has proven its value. 

Fuentes particularly values the human side of the partnership, noting that connecting with Latitude.sh's team has been consistently helpful. Support cases are handled in a timely manner, and there have been virtually no problems between the organizations.

The technical capabilities continue to impress. Having access to features like SSH into serial consoles alongside modern tooling like Terraform and APIs represents a rare combination in the infrastructure space. As Fuentes puts it, this wide array of capabilities means never having to call for remote hands or worry about access limitations.

When asked to sum up the experience with Latitude.sh in a single sentence, Fuentes' response was simple and direct: "Easy, simple, and effective."

Make sure your Web3 infra is setting your team up for success. Get started on Latitude.sh today.

At the request of the participants, some names in this case study have been replaced with aliases to preserve confidentiality.