Estimating Transaction Accounting Units in Solana

As a developer building Solana decentralized applications (dApps), it is very important to understand how transactions impact computing resources. One part of this is estimating the number of compute units (CUs) required for each transaction. In this article, we will look at how to estimate units using the event instruction list.

Context

An event is made up of several commands, including:

• Computation instructions: Used to perform calculations or computations within a transaction.

• Storage instructions: Used to temporarily store data during computation.

• Collect instructions: Used to collect information from other events before combining them into a compute instruction.

• Distribute instructions

  

  : Used to distribute data across different storage units.

Estimating Counting Units

To estimate the number of compute units required for each event, we need to analyze the instruction types and their usage. Here is a step-by-step guide:

• Identify Instruction Types: Collect the number of each instruction type (compute, store, collect, distribute) from the transaction data.

• Instructions Per Unit (IPU): Divide the total number of instructions by the average IPU usage of all transactions.

• Estimated Counting Units: For each event, multiply the estimated IPU usage by the Counting Unit Limit (CUL).

Suppose you have a list of events with the following instruction quantities:

| Instruction Type | Compute |

| — | — |

| Compute Instructions | 1000 |

| Storage Guide | 500 |

| Collect Instructions | 200 |

| Share Instructions | 150 |

Estimated Billing Units for Each Event

Calculate the estimated IPU usage for each event:

event_count = 10

Assume the average IPU usage is 1 CU per 100 instructions
estimated_ipu_per_event = 100 / event_count

Calculate the total CUL for all events
total_cul_for_transactions = estimated_cash_transaction * number of transactions
print(f"Estimated Billing Units for transaction {transaction_count}: {total_cul_for_transactions}")

Start:

Estimated Billing Units for 10 events: 10.0

Now multiply the estimated IPU usage by the target CUL to get a rough estimate of the required about compute units:

Rough estimate: 100 CUL

This is a rough estimate and may vary depending on many factors, such as event complexity, network conditions, and available compute resources.

Setting a lower unit limit

If you want to set a lower CUL value for events, you can adjust the estimated IPU usage or reduce the target number of events. This will help optimize your application’s performance and resource usage.

For example, if you use 100 CUL as a rough estimate, you can set a lower bound by reducing the number of events:

event_count = 5

Adjusted Estimated IPU Usage
estimated_id_per_event = 20 / number_of_events

New Target CUL
new_cul_for_transactions = estimated_cash_per_transaction * number_of_transactions
print(f"New CUL: {new_cul_for_transactions}")

Start:

New CUL: 200

You can customize your estimate based on your use case to optimize your application’s performance and make more informed decisions about compute unit limits.

Always remember to test and validate your estimates with real data before deploying your application.