Scale or Die 2025: High Performance Networking: How DoubleZero Enables IBRL

In a groundbreaking presentation at Scale or Die 2025, Andrew McConnell unveils DoubleZero's revolutionary high-performance network, set to transform Solana's infrastructure and pave the way for unprecedented blockchain speed and efficiency.

Summary

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Andrew McConnell's presentation at Scale or Die 2025 introduces DoubleZero's high-performance wide area network (WAN) and its role in enabling Increased Bandwidth and Reduced Latency (IBRL) for Solana. The talk covers fundamental networking concepts such as bandwidth, throughput, and latency, explaining how DoubleZero's network design addresses these factors to optimize blockchain performance.

McConnell details the key characteristics of a high-performance WAN, including data flow-driven design, direct routing, latency-based path selection, and advanced instrumentation. He then demonstrates how DoubleZero's network meets these criteria, offering significant improvements over the public internet in terms of hop count reduction and end-to-end latency.

The presentation concludes by comparing DoubleZero's network to the public internet, highlighting its advantages in design philosophy, path selection, and performance monitoring. McConnell emphasizes the importance of a dedicated, purpose-built network for blockchain infrastructure, free from the diurnal congestion patterns that affect the public internet.

Key Points:

Understanding Network Performance Metrics

McConnell begins by explaining the fundamental concepts of network performance: bandwidth, throughput, and latency. Using a plumbing analogy, he describes bandwidth as the size of the pipe, throughput as the actual flow through the pipe, and latency as the time it takes for data to travel from one end to the other. He further breaks down latency into its components: serialization delay, propagation delay, per-hop delay, and queuing delay. This foundation is crucial for understanding how DoubleZero's network design improves overall performance.

Characteristics of High-Performance Wide Area Networks

The presentation outlines the key features that define a high-performance WAN. These include data flow-driven design decisions, direct routing between endpoints, latency-based path selection, low maximum link utilization (MLU), near-lossless operation at peak loads, and advanced instrumentation. McConnell emphasizes that understanding the specific application requirements is essential for designing an effective high-performance network, which is particularly relevant for blockchain infrastructure.

DoubleZero's Network Design and Implementation

McConnell showcases DoubleZero's physical network, which is expected to span nearly 30 metro areas by the end of 2025. He explains how the network's design is driven by Solana's validator distribution and stake concentration, ensuring optimal coverage. The presentation demonstrates DoubleZero's latency-based routing through a hypothetical scenario, highlighting how it differs from traditional ISP routing methods. McConnell also discusses the network's advanced instrumentation, including the use of watermarks to monitor queue lengths and prevent packet loss.

Comparison with the Public Internet

A significant portion of the talk is dedicated to comparing DoubleZero's network with the public internet. McConnell presents a table contrasting the two in terms of design philosophy, location selection, maximum link utilization, path selection, and other factors. He argues that DoubleZero's purpose-built network offers superior performance and reliability for blockchain infrastructure, addressing the limitations of the public internet such as congestion and indirect routing.

Importance of Dedicated Infrastructure

In the closing remarks, McConnell introduces an additional property of high-performance networks: dedication to a specific purpose. He discusses research on global internet usage patterns, highlighting the diurnal effect that causes congestion during peak hours in different regions. By contrast, DoubleZero's dedicated network is designed to provide consistent performance regardless of time or location, which is crucial for a global blockchain platform like Solana.

Facts + Figures

• DoubleZero's test network currently spans 8 metro areas
• The network is expected to expand to nearly 30 metro areas by the end of 2025
• In a test case, DoubleZero's network reduced hop count from 22 to 5 between Amsterdam and Tokyo
• The same test showed a 12-millisecond reduction in end-to-end latency compared to the public internet
• DoubleZero aims for less than 50% maximum link utilization (MLU) in failure modes, compared to 80%+ for typical carriers
• The network uses advanced features of modern switching silicon to monitor queue lengths and detect bursts
• DoubleZero's network design is based on Solana's validator distribution and stake concentration
• The presentation references a Cornell study from about 8 years ago on global internet usage patterns

Top quotes

1. "Data flows drive most of the decisions. If you're going to build a network to serve hotel guests or office campus or a university, you kind of have to invent a traffic profile. But when you're building a high-performance WAN, you're about to sink a lot of time, energy, and importantly money into the system."

2. "Latency between endpoints as the primary routing decision. This is a critical part of what we're doing here at DoubleZero that the internet completely ignores."

3. "There's no point in building a high-performance network if the hosts are slow. So if you don't have a high-performance host networking stack, it's kind of unnecessary to have a high-performance network."

4. "For a high-performance system that underpins the future of finance, I think that DoubleZero meets the mark."

5. "Any network, high performance or not, any alternative network to the public internet that isn't subject to this sort of diurnal effect, is really important."

Questions Answered

What is DoubleZero's network and how does it differ from the public internet?

DoubleZero's network is a high-performance wide area network (WAN) designed specifically for blockchain infrastructure, particularly Solana. It differs from the public internet in several key ways, including its data flow-driven design, direct routing between endpoints, and latency-based path selection. Unlike the public internet, which optimizes for low-cost reachability and peering agreements, DoubleZero's network prioritizes performance and consistency for blockchain operations.

How does DoubleZero's network improve latency?

DoubleZero's network improves latency through several mechanisms. First, it uses direct routing between endpoints, minimizing the number of hops data must take. Second, it employs latency-based path selection, always choosing the route with the lowest end-to-end latency. Additionally, the network is designed for low maximum link utilization, which helps prevent congestion and queuing delays. In a test case between Amsterdam and Tokyo, DoubleZero's network reduced latency by 12 milliseconds compared to the public internet.

What is the expected coverage of DoubleZero's network?

By the end of 2025, DoubleZero's network is expected to span nearly 30 metro areas globally. The network's coverage is designed based on Solana's validator distribution and stake concentration, ensuring optimal performance for the blockchain. This extensive coverage will provide a dedicated, high-performance infrastructure for Solana operations across major global financial and technological hubs.

How does DoubleZero monitor network performance?

DoubleZero employs advanced instrumentation techniques to monitor network performance. This includes using features of modern switching silicon to create watermarks that track queue lengths on each link. These watermarks are recorded on the DoubleZero ledger, allowing for proactive capacity planning and performance optimization. This approach aims to detect and address potential issues before they result in packet loss or performance degradation.

Why is a dedicated network important for blockchain infrastructure?

A dedicated network like DoubleZero's is important for blockchain infrastructure because it provides consistent, high-performance connectivity regardless of public internet conditions. Unlike the public internet, which experiences diurnal congestion patterns based on regional usage, a dedicated network can maintain optimal performance at all times. This consistency is crucial for financial applications and global blockchain operations that require reliable, low-latency communications.