Anza Proposes Geo-Aware Scheduling for Solana Validators

Researchers at Anza have proposed a new solution to reduce block production handover delays on Solana's network. The proposal, known as SIMD-0675, would group validators by geographic location and schedule them consecutively, reducing latency by 53%.

The current leader schedule is random with respect to geography, resulting in delays of up to 36.2 milliseconds. Under the proposed geo-aware model, mean leader handover latency dropped to 17.0 milliseconds.

Validators that register their geographic location on-chain would be grouped into bins and run consecutively, with a maximum of three consecutive leaders per bin. This design aims to reduce distance-related waiting times.

The proposal is tied to Solana's upcoming consensus protocol, Alpenglow, which targets finality in around 150 milliseconds. With handover latency accounting for tens of milliseconds, the proposed change could have a significant impact on the network's overall performance.