ERPC Brings the XDP Fast Path and zero-copy to Production for Its Solana Geyser gRPC in the New York (NY) Region — a ~530ms p99 Delivery-Lag Difference Confirmed
ERPC Brings the XDP Fast Path and zero-copy to Production for Its Solana Geyser gRPC in the New York (NY) Region — a ~530ms p99 Delivery-Lag Difference Confirmed
ELSOUL LABO B.V. (Headquarters: Amsterdam, Netherlands; CEO: Fumitake Kawasaki) and Validators DAO, which operate ERPC, are pleased to announce that ERPC has brought the XDP fast path and AF_XDP zero-copy of Solana v4 (Agave 4.x) to production for its shared Solana Geyser gRPC endpoint in the New York (NY) region.
The XDP fast path and AF_XDP zero-copy are no longer experimental in the Agave 4.x line and have been organized into features available through the official launch flags
--xdp-interface / --xdp-cpu-cores / --xdp-zero-copy. ERPC has now brought this network optimization — which is seeing growing adoption in the high-performance Solana validator space — to production on the source validator backing the NY-region Geyser gRPC. In a before/after comparison measured with slv check geyserbench from the open-source Solana operations tool SLV, the pre-optimization source node in the same NY region lagged the new configuration by p50 63ms / p95 490ms / p99 530ms. These are not the absolute delivery lag of the optimized node but a before/after difference, with hundreds-of-milliseconds improvements observed especially in the p95/p99 tail. This change is already running in production. Customers who prioritize first-arrival performance can try the NY-region Geyser gRPC right away — via hourly billing (per hour) or Crypto Pay (SOL / USDC / EURC).ERPC Official Site: https://erpc.global/en
ERPC Dashboard: https://dashboard.erpc.global/en
Why the Geyser gRPC in the New York (NY) Region Matters
On Solana, the leader responsible for block production rotates on a short cycle, so the origin of communication is always moving. In this structure, what matters in practice is not being close to a single fixed point, but having a high probability of being close to the network where the major nodes and validators are concentrated — and this directly affects latency, retransmission rates, and failure rates in real operation.
The New York (NY) region is where demand concentrates during North American trading hours for trading, indexing, and monitoring/analytics workloads that require real-time on-chain data. Geyser gRPC is the path for receiving account, slot, block, and transaction updates as a stream rather than by polling, and here a one-millisecond difference connects directly to capturing execution opportunities and to perceived front-end speed. That is exactly why it is meaningful to keep the NY-region Geyser gRPC at the fastest tier in both design and optimization.
Measurement Results — Before/After Delivery-Lag Difference via slv check geyserbench
We ran a comparison measurement, using
slv check geyserbench from the open-source Solana operations tool SLV, between the new configuration with the XDP fast path and AF_XDP zero-copy enabled and the pre-optimization source node in the same NY region. As a result, the pre-optimization node lagged the new configuration by the following differences:- p50 lag difference: 63ms
- p95 lag difference: 490ms
- p99 lag difference: 530ms
These figures are not the absolute delivery lag of the optimized node; they are a comparison value showing how far the pre-optimization source node lagged behind the new configuration.
The differences are especially large in the p95/p99 tail, on the order of hundreds of milliseconds. The tail region represents the upper-percentile cases where delays grow larger than usual, and for trading and real-time workloads that prioritize first-arrival performance, it is the region most likely to surface as a delay in decision-making. The fact that the pre-optimization node lagged the new configuration by about 530ms at p99 shows that, in the tail region, the difference in the source-side ingest and propagation path directly affects the low-latency streaming quality of the Geyser gRPC.
The measurement method is open source. Customers can use the same
slv check geyserbench method to check the actual lag as seen from their own connection point. Because delivery lag varies with the connection origin, route, time of day, and leader distribution, what can be reproduced is not a fixed number but the measurement method itself. The steps from installing SLV to running the measurement are published in the SLV Getting Started guide. ERPC places importance on showing delivery quality not through subjective claims or marketing copy, but through measurement that anyone can verify with the same method.SLV Official Site: https://slv.dev/en
SLV Getting Started: https://slv.dev/en/doc/general/getting-started/
What the XDP Fast Path and zero-copy of Solana v4 Are
XDP (eXpress Data Path) is a Linux kernel technology that lets high-performance network code bypass much of the kernel's usual packet-processing path. By reducing data copies and context switches, it processes packets with far less overhead than the standard networking stack.
In Agave (the Solana validator client), XDP is applied to Turbine, the protocol that propagates blocks between validator nodes. Received shreds are processed by an eBPF program attached close to the network interface card (NIC) and mapped into user-space buffers via AF_XDP. When zero-copy mode is used, received data is handed off directly from kernel to user space without copying. Outbound shreds are sent directly via XDP_TX, eliminating system calls and copies on the hot path.
Anza introduced XDP for Turbine in the Agave 3.x line and carried it into the foundation of Solana v4 (Agave 4.x). In the Agave 4.x line, XDP is no longer experimental and has been organized into a feature available through official launch flags. According to Anza's setup guide, with XDP, large validators can approach 150,000 outbound packets per second.
Anza Agave XDP Setup Guide: https://www.anza.xyz/blog/agave-xdp-setup-guide
Deployed to Production on the NY Source Validator — What We Enabled
ERPC migrated the source validator backing the NY-region Geyser gRPC to Solana v4 (Agave 4.x) and put the XDP fast path and AF_XDP zero-copy — available through official launch flags — into production.
As the source can receive and propagate shreds faster, it can observe and reconstruct blocks at an earlier stage, which shortens the lag for those updates to reach customers through the Geyser gRPC stream. Geyser lag is ultimately supported by "how quickly the source can grab a block." XDP and zero-copy are precisely the optimizations that accelerate that source-side ingest path.
Enabling XDP requires advanced and error-prone tuning: a recent kernel, an XDP-capable NIC, the right systemd capabilities for the validator process, correct launch flags, and appropriate CPU-core pinning. ERPC applies the operational know-how cultivated from running validators at the top of the network directly to building and operating its source validators.
The Same Optimization as High-Performance Validators, Brought to the Delivery Endpoint
XDP and zero-copy are network optimizations seeing growing adoption in the high-performance Solana validator space. ERPC applies that same technology not only for "fast validators," but for "the source validator that backs the delivery endpoint that gets data to customers faster."
And the operational know-how for this optimization is consolidated as a recipe in the open-source Solana operations tool SLV. SLV provides everything from enabling XDP (via configuration variables such as
xdp_enabled / xdp_zero_copy) to measuring delivery lag (slv check geyserbench), in a form that anyone can reproduce through conversations with an AI agent or via CLI. The optimization ERPC achieved in the NY region is not a one-off trick for a single machine, but stands on a reproducible operational recipe.SLV GitHub: https://github.com/validatorsDAO/slv
Suppressing Distance-Derived Latency by Design — the AS200261 Solana-Specific Data Center
ERPC's latency advantage does not come from software optimization alone. By placing source validators, receiving endpoints, and processing nodes inside premium data centers where Solana validators are densely concentrated, ERPC suppresses distance-derived latency at the design stage.
ELSOUL LABO operates a Solana-specific data center under its own ASN (AS200261), assigned by RIPE NCC, as part of the ERPC platform. Software optimizations like today's XDP and zero-copy deliver their maximum effect only on top of this physical and network proximity design. With both design-level proximity and source-side software optimization in place, first-arrival performance and low-latency streaming quality are realized.
Rolling Out Across All Regions — a Lineage of Continuous Infrastructure Strengthening
This optimization in the NY region sits within the lineage of all-region Geyser gRPC infrastructure strengthening that ERPC has continuously pursued. It is the latest-generation optimization, following the all-region Geyser gRPC infrastructure upgrade in December 2025 and the large-scale strengthening of the Frankfurt (FRA) region in January 2026.
Following this result in the NY region, ERPC will roll out the XDP fast path and zero-copy of Solana v4 region by region, starting with regions where verification of compatible NICs, kernels, and network configurations is complete. Rather than responding to rising demand with limits or degradation, ERPC consistently absorbs it by strengthening the infrastructure itself. ERPC's Geyser gRPC will continue to evolve.
Try the NY Geyser gRPC on Hourly Billing — Verify With Your Own Numbers
The NY-region Geyser gRPC can be tried from a single hour via the hourly billing plan. This makes a low-risk verification loop possible: contract for just one hour, run
slv check geyserbench within that hour to measure the actual delivery lag as seen from your own bot or application's connection point, and decide on moving to a monthly or annual plan after confirming those numbers.Being able to make decisions based on numbers you measured yourself, rather than a vendor's claims, is the starting point for customers who prioritize first-arrival performance. Once your configuration and usage become clear, switching to a monthly or annual plan keeps you on the same dashboard and the same endpoint quality.
ERPC Dashboard: https://dashboard.erpc.global/en
Crypto Pay (SOL / USDC / EURC) Supported
ERPC offers Crypto Pay for purchasing ERPC credits and for paying for its plans, and it is supported for the hourly billing plan as well. You can choose SOL, or the stablecoins USDC / EURC, as the payment asset. EURC can be sent directly, while USDC or SOL is swapped to EURC via Orca, with the transfer completed within the same flow.
For teams building and operating on Solana, being able to handle infrastructure costs in a manner close to their existing wallet-based fund management flow is a practical improvement that lowers the friction to start verification. The hourly-billing verification described above can also be started directly from the assets in your Solana wallet.
Order, Pay, and Manage Solana-Specific Infrastructure on One Platform
ERPC lets you combine Solana RPC, WebSocket, Solana Geyser gRPC, Solana Shredstream, Direct UDP Stream (Raw Shreds), VPS, bare-metal servers, dedicated RPC, SWQoS, a Pyth-enabled Price API, and Jet Analytics & Indexed RPC on a single platform.
The ERPC Dashboard supports 16 languages, letting you handle plan selection, region selection, stock checks, adding to cart, credit top-ups, checkout, reviewing API keys and endpoints, checking usage, and creating support tickets — all from the same screen.
R&D and Continuous Improvement of Solana-Specific Infrastructure
Behind ERPC is the research and development of Solana-specific infrastructure that ELSOUL LABO continues to pursue. ELSOUL LABO has been approved for five consecutive years since 2022 under WBSO, the Netherlands' government R&D support program. It continues R&D on Solana RPC infrastructure, validator operations, real-time data delivery, and AI-agent-assisted operations and development, and those results are reflected across services including ERPC, SLV, SLV AI, and the AS200261 Solana-specific data center.
Today's Solana v4 / XDP / zero-copy support in the NY region also took shape from operating validators at the top of the network. ERPC will continue to provide low-latency infrastructure close to the Solana network and to demonstrate its quality through measurement that anyone can verify with the same method.
Usage and Consultation
For optimal regional configurations including the shared NY-region Geyser gRPC endpoint, selecting between standalone gRPC plans and gRPC Bundle plans, choosing between hourly, monthly, and annual billing, and migration design from an existing configuration, we provide individual consultation on the official Validators DAO Discord.
ERPC Dashboard: https://dashboard.erpc.global/en
ERPC Official Site: https://erpc.global/en
Validators DAO Official Discord: https://discord.gg/C7ZQSrCkYR
We sincerely thank all of our users for their continued use of ERPC.
Links
- ERPC Official Site: https://erpc.global/en
- ERPC Dashboard: https://dashboard.erpc.global/en
- SLV Official Site: https://slv.dev/en
- SLV Getting Started: https://slv.dev/en/doc/general/getting-started/
- SLV GitHub: https://github.com/validatorsDAO/slv
- Anza Agave XDP Setup Guide: https://www.anza.xyz/blog/agave-xdp-setup-guide
- Validators DAO Official Discord: https://discord.gg/C7ZQSrCkYR
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