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C-POD: An AWS Cloud Framework for Edge Pod Automation and Remote Wireless Testbed Sharing

Annoy Dey, Vineet Sreeram, Gokkul Eraivan Arutkani Aiyanathan, Maxwell McManus, Yuqing Cui, Guanying Sun, Elizabeth Serena Bentley, Nicholas Mastronarde, Zhangyu Guan

TL;DR

The paper addresses the barrier to wireless over-the-air experimentation and testbed sharing by introducing C-POD, a cloud-native framework that automates edge-pod deployment and enables remote, GUI-enabled access to distributed testbeds. It combines a Federation Plane for elastic service orchestration with a Testbed Plane for on-site edge resources, leveraging AWS/RKE2, Redis-based port management, and noVNC/SSH tunnels to support multi-user, scalable workflows. The authors validate a prototype on AWS with SDR and OpenAirInterface 5G testbeds, demonstrating low, stable latency, predictable resource usage, and effective pod scalability. This approach lowers entry costs for small labs and accelerates collaboration by providing ready-to-use cloud-edge infrastructure for remote testbed sharing and OTA experimentation.

Abstract

This paper presents C-POD, a cloud-native framework that automates the deployment and management of edge pods for seamless remote access and sharing of wireless testbeds. C-POD leverages public cloud resources and edge pods to lower the barrier to over-the-air (OTA) experimentation, enabling researchers to share and access distributed testbeds without extensive local infrastructure. A supporting toolkit has been developed for C-POD to enable flexible and scalable experimental workflows, including containerized edge environments, persistent Secure Shell (SSH) tunnels, and stable graphical interfaces. We prototype and deploy C-POD on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) public cloud to demonstrate its key features, including cloud-assisted edge pod deployment automation, elastic computing resource management, and experiment observability, by integrating two wireless testbeds that focus on RF signal generation and 5G(B) communications, respectively.

C-POD: An AWS Cloud Framework for Edge Pod Automation and Remote Wireless Testbed Sharing

TL;DR

The paper addresses the barrier to wireless over-the-air experimentation and testbed sharing by introducing C-POD, a cloud-native framework that automates edge-pod deployment and enables remote, GUI-enabled access to distributed testbeds. It combines a Federation Plane for elastic service orchestration with a Testbed Plane for on-site edge resources, leveraging AWS/RKE2, Redis-based port management, and noVNC/SSH tunnels to support multi-user, scalable workflows. The authors validate a prototype on AWS with SDR and OpenAirInterface 5G testbeds, demonstrating low, stable latency, predictable resource usage, and effective pod scalability. This approach lowers entry costs for small labs and accelerates collaboration by providing ready-to-use cloud-edge infrastructure for remote testbed sharing and OTA experimentation.

Abstract

This paper presents C-POD, a cloud-native framework that automates the deployment and management of edge pods for seamless remote access and sharing of wireless testbeds. C-POD leverages public cloud resources and edge pods to lower the barrier to over-the-air (OTA) experimentation, enabling researchers to share and access distributed testbeds without extensive local infrastructure. A supporting toolkit has been developed for C-POD to enable flexible and scalable experimental workflows, including containerized edge environments, persistent Secure Shell (SSH) tunnels, and stable graphical interfaces. We prototype and deploy C-POD on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) public cloud to demonstrate its key features, including cloud-assisted edge pod deployment automation, elastic computing resource management, and experiment observability, by integrating two wireless testbeds that focus on RF signal generation and 5G(B) communications, respectively.
Paper Structure (12 sections, 8 figures)

This paper contains 12 sections, 8 figures.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. C-POD Framework and Toolkit Design
  3. Toolkit Development
  4. Prototyping and Evaluation
  5. Testbed Plane Setup
  6. Walkthrough Examples
  7. Resource Reservation
  8. Remote Access to SDR Testbed and Experiment
  9. Link Establishment on Remote OAI 5G Testbed
  10. Scalability of Pod Deployment
  11. Cloud-Edge Latency Measurement
  12. Conclusions

Figures (8)

  • Figure 1: Cluster and pod structure in C-POD: Illustration of interactions between RKE2 components, container lifecycle management, and the software environment, including StatefulSet configuration, image pulling, reverse SSH/VNC setup, and automated resource provisioning.
  • Figure 2: Port management workflow for edge server cluster.
  • Figure 3: SDR Testbed
  • Figure 4: OAI 5G Testbed hardware configuration: (a) BS node, comprised of OAI CN and gNB; (b) UE node.
  • Figure 5: Reservation workflow for a USRP device in the C-POD web portal.
  • ...and 3 more figures