SLICES, a scientific instrument for the networking community

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Fdida, Serge, Makris, Nikos, Korakis, Thanasis, Bruno, Raffaele, Passarella, Andrea, Andreou, Panayiotis, Belter, Bartosz, Crettaz, Cedric, Dabbous, Walid, Demchenko, Yuri, Knopp, Raymond
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Fdida, Serge
Makris, Nikos
Korakis, Thanasis
Bruno, Raffaele
Passarella, Andrea
Andreou, Panayiotis
Belter, Bartosz
Crettaz, Cedric
Dabbous, Walid
Demchenko, Yuri
Knopp, Raymond
author_facet Fdida, Serge
Makris, Nikos
Korakis, Thanasis
Bruno, Raffaele
Passarella, Andrea
Andreou, Panayiotis
Belter, Bartosz
Crettaz, Cedric
Dabbous, Walid
Demchenko, Yuri
Knopp, Raymond
contents A science is defined by a set of encyclopedic knowledge related to facts or phenomena following rules or evidenced by experimentally-driven observations. Computer Science and in particular computer networks is a relatively new scientific domain maturing over years and adopting the best practices inherited from more fundamental disciplines. The design of past, present and future networking components and architectures have been assisted, among other methods, by experimentally-driven research and in particular by the deployment of test platforms, usually named as testbeds. However, often experimentally-driven networking research used scattered methodologies, based on ad-hoc, small-sized testbeds, producing hardly repeatable results. We believe that computer networks needs to adopt a more structured methodology, supported by appropriate instruments, to produce credible experimental results supporting radical and incremental innovations. This paper reports lessons learned from the design and operation of test platforms for the scientific community dealing with digital infrastructures. We introduce the SLICES initiative as the outcome of several years of evolution of the concept of a networking test platform transformed into a scientific instrument. We address the challenges, requirements and opportunities that our community is facing to manage the full research-life cycle necessary to support a scientific methodology.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_09783
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle SLICES, a scientific instrument for the networking community
Fdida, Serge
Makris, Nikos
Korakis, Thanasis
Bruno, Raffaele
Passarella, Andrea
Andreou, Panayiotis
Belter, Bartosz
Crettaz, Cedric
Dabbous, Walid
Demchenko, Yuri
Knopp, Raymond
Networking and Internet Architecture
A science is defined by a set of encyclopedic knowledge related to facts or phenomena following rules or evidenced by experimentally-driven observations. Computer Science and in particular computer networks is a relatively new scientific domain maturing over years and adopting the best practices inherited from more fundamental disciplines. The design of past, present and future networking components and architectures have been assisted, among other methods, by experimentally-driven research and in particular by the deployment of test platforms, usually named as testbeds. However, often experimentally-driven networking research used scattered methodologies, based on ad-hoc, small-sized testbeds, producing hardly repeatable results. We believe that computer networks needs to adopt a more structured methodology, supported by appropriate instruments, to produce credible experimental results supporting radical and incremental innovations. This paper reports lessons learned from the design and operation of test platforms for the scientific community dealing with digital infrastructures. We introduce the SLICES initiative as the outcome of several years of evolution of the concept of a networking test platform transformed into a scientific instrument. We address the challenges, requirements and opportunities that our community is facing to manage the full research-life cycle necessary to support a scientific methodology.
title SLICES, a scientific instrument for the networking community
topic Networking and Internet Architecture
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.09783