The growing research and industry interest in the Internet of Things and the edge computing paradigm has increased the need for cost-efficient virtual testbeds for large-scale distributed applications. Researchers, students, and practitioners need to test and evaluate the interplay of hundreds or thousands of real software components and services connected with a realistic edge network without access to physical infrastructure. While advances in virtualization technologies have enabled parts of this, network emulation as a crucial part in the development of edge testbeds is lagging behind: As we show in this paper, NetEm, the current state-of-the-art network emulation tooling included in the Linux kernel, imposes prohibitive scalability limits. We quantify these limits, investigate possible causes, and present a way forward for network emulation in large-scale virtual edge testbeds based on eBPFs.
@article{arxiv.2208.05862,
title = {Network Emulation in Large-Scale Virtual Edge Testbeds: A Note of Caution and the Way Forward},
author = {Soeren Becker and Tobias Pfandzelter and Nils Japke and David Bermbach and Odej Kao},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2208.05862},
year = {2022}
}
Comments
Accepted for 2nd International Workshop on Testing Distributed Internet of Things Systems (TDIS 2022)