OneLab Tutorial: A Single Portal to Heterogeneous Testbeds

Large-scale experimentation in varying types of environments is difficult to achieve, and until recently, experimenters have had to either construct their own platforms or rely on simulation, emulation, or analysis to gain results. However, these methods largely do not provide adequate or verified results. Until very recently, large-scale testbed facilities have existed in separate silos, each with its own authentication mechanisms and experiment support tools. There lacked a viable federation model that reconciled the challenges posed by how to provide a single entry point to access heterogeneous and distributed resources, and how to federate these resources that are under the control of multiple authorities. The OneLab experimental facility, which came online in 2014, realizes this model, making a set of world-class testbeds freely available to researchers through a unique credential for each user and a common set of tools. Our tutorial will focus on providing attendees with hands-on experience in navigating the OneLab portal and deploying experiments across our federated platforms. We will allow users to deploy innovative experiments across three of our federated platforms of FIT IoT-Lab, NITOS-Lab, and PlanetLab Europe.