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Cloud-Based Federation Framework and Prototype for Open, Scalable, and Shared Access to NextG and IoT Testbeds

Maxwell McManus, Tenzin Rinchen, Annoy Dey, Sumanth Thota, Zhaoxi Zhang, Jiangqi Hu, Xi Wang, Mingyue Ji, Nicholas Mastronarde, Elizabeth Serena Bentley, Michael Medley, Zhangyu Guan

TL;DR

The paper tackles the challenge of scalable, low-complexity federation of heterogeneous OTA wireless testbeds for NextG and IoT research. It introduces UnionLabs, a cloud-based Federation Plane with automation components SMIE, ASG, and DCM, implemented on AWS to automate registration, context generation, and remote orchestration through Lambda functions. The authors demonstrate the framework by federating UB NeXT and UT IoT, showing two-minute federation, automated SSM deployment, and streamlined remote experiments, along with substantial reductions in cloud-to-edge access latency and modest edge-resource needs. The work contributes a practical, open path toward democratizing access to wireless testbeds and accelerating the development of an open experimental ecosystem, while outlining future directions for mobility support, container orchestration, and administrative tooling.

Abstract

In this work, we present a new federation framework for UnionLabs, an innovative cloud-based resource-sharing infrastructure designed for next-generation (NextG) and Internet of Things (IoT) over-the-air (OTA) experiments. The framework aims to reduce the federation complexity for testbeds developers by automating tedious backend operations, thereby providing scalable federation and remote access to various wireless testbeds. We first describe the key components of the new federation framework, including the Systems Manager Integration Engine (SMIE), the Automated Script Generator (ASG), and the Database Context Manager (DCM). We then prototype and deploy the new Federation Plane on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) public cloud, demonstrating its effectiveness by federating two wireless testbeds: i) UB NeXT, a 5G-and-beyond (5G+) testbed at the University at Buffalo, and ii) UT IoT, an IoT testbed at the University of Utah. Through this work we aim to initiate a grassroots campaign to democratize access to wireless research testbeds with heterogeneous hardware resources and network environment, and accelerate the establishment of a mature, open experimental ecosystem for the wireless community. The API of the new Federation Plane will be released to the community after internal testing is completed.

Cloud-Based Federation Framework and Prototype for Open, Scalable, and Shared Access to NextG and IoT Testbeds

TL;DR

The paper tackles the challenge of scalable, low-complexity federation of heterogeneous OTA wireless testbeds for NextG and IoT research. It introduces UnionLabs, a cloud-based Federation Plane with automation components SMIE, ASG, and DCM, implemented on AWS to automate registration, context generation, and remote orchestration through Lambda functions. The authors demonstrate the framework by federating UB NeXT and UT IoT, showing two-minute federation, automated SSM deployment, and streamlined remote experiments, along with substantial reductions in cloud-to-edge access latency and modest edge-resource needs. The work contributes a practical, open path toward democratizing access to wireless testbeds and accelerating the development of an open experimental ecosystem, while outlining future directions for mobility support, container orchestration, and administrative tooling.

Abstract

In this work, we present a new federation framework for UnionLabs, an innovative cloud-based resource-sharing infrastructure designed for next-generation (NextG) and Internet of Things (IoT) over-the-air (OTA) experiments. The framework aims to reduce the federation complexity for testbeds developers by automating tedious backend operations, thereby providing scalable federation and remote access to various wireless testbeds. We first describe the key components of the new federation framework, including the Systems Manager Integration Engine (SMIE), the Automated Script Generator (ASG), and the Database Context Manager (DCM). We then prototype and deploy the new Federation Plane on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) public cloud, demonstrating its effectiveness by federating two wireless testbeds: i) UB NeXT, a 5G-and-beyond (5G+) testbed at the University at Buffalo, and ii) UT IoT, an IoT testbed at the University of Utah. Through this work we aim to initiate a grassroots campaign to democratize access to wireless research testbeds with heterogeneous hardware resources and network environment, and accelerate the establishment of a mature, open experimental ecosystem for the wireless community. The API of the new Federation Plane will be released to the community after internal testing is completed.
Paper Structure (13 sections, 8 figures, 3 tables)

This paper contains 13 sections, 8 figures, 3 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Related Work
  3. UnionLabs: A Primer
  4. Automated Federation Framework
  5. Toolchain Design
  6. Federation Process
  7. Service Integration
  8. Demonstration and Evaluation
  9. Federation Demonstration
  10. Remote Experiment Demonstration
  11. Cloud-to-Edge Latency Performance
  12. Limitations and Future Work
  13. Conclusion

Figures (8)

  • Figure 1: Architecture Overview of UnionLabs for Experimental Resource Sharing
  • Figure 2: Automated SSM script generation for testbed integration.
  • Figure 3: SSM installation on testbed with (a) centralized node control interface and (b) distributed and/or direct node control interface.
  • Figure 4: Part of the resources available to the UB NeXT testbed.
  • Figure 5: Example of auto-generation of SSM installation script.
  • ...and 3 more figures