A Methodology for Reproducible and Portable Experiment Workflows

Testbeds allow the creation of research prototypes to test new ideas through practical experiments. This central role in validating ideas makes them irreplaceable tools for data-driven research in computer science. Various testbeds were created to provide testbeds for the scientific community. To simplify testbed usage, frameworks help to authenticate users, allocate resources, and run experiments. Each testbed typically implements its own framework using a specific API to realize experiments. Such an experiment design impedes the portability of experiments between different testbeds. In this paper, we present a solution where we port the pos experiment controller to the Chameleon and CloudLab testbed. The well-structured pos experiment workflow allows the creation of inherently reproducible experiments. Previously, the experiments using the pos workflow were only possible in dedicated testbeds. By introducing the portability feature, these experiments can run on Chameleon and CloudLab. We demonstrate that experiments can be executed on any of the mentioned platforms without changing the experiment definition. Based on these results, we discuss how the portability feature will be used in the upcoming SLICES-RI testbeds to create reproducible and easily-shareable experiments.

Our paper is publicly accessible for free at http://dx.doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comcom.2025.108178