If there's a discussion about Solana, it always revolves around SOL, the ability to perform speedy transactions or having cheap fees. Yet, everything that is done on Solana occurs within a large system of software, validators, accounts, networking, and transactions.

The validators are at the center of Solana. They perform transaction processing and help manage the shared ledger. The Solana transaction protocol is a series of transactions that occur in phases, including accepting, signature verification, validation, accounts fetching, execution, and, finally, commitment.

There is also an account-based model utilized by Solana. Accounts store all the network's state, and programs are where the logic for transaction processing lies. Transactions inform the network about which accounts will be used and which instructions will be processed.

This is crucial, as the network knows in advance which data a transaction will require during its execution.

Therefore, Solana is not just one high-performance computer.

It is a network consisting of many parts.

Another vital component of Solana’s infrastructure is Proof of History (PoH). This is a verifiable cryptographic sequence that is used to verify order and the time elapsed between events. Solana uses it in conjunction with its consensus and validator infrastructure rather than employing Proof of History as an alternative to consensus.

Next comes Sealevel – Solana’s parallel runtime. If transactions do not require the same accounts, they may be executed in parallel rather than being processed sequentially.

Solana also has infrastructure for transferring transactions and ledger data between validators. The architecture of Solana has comprised systems such as Turbine for block propagation and special transaction-processing components.

All of this complements each other: validators run the network, accounts store state, programs execute logic, transactions flow through a pipeline, Proof of History orders the transactions and time, parallel execution makes it possible to utilize computing power more efficiently.

SOL is the token visible to all people. The infrastructure underneath is the one making the whole system function properly.