Abstract
Testing networking products involves creating real-world scenarios using a variety of devices and configurations, which can be very challenging. Testbeds in large testing environments are often underutilized, with usage rates typically below 30% per year, resulting in inefficiencies and high expenses. This article explains how CloudLAB, with its Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) services, addresses these challenges.
CloudLAB offers flexible, on-demand solutions for tasks like personal experimentation, dynamic regression and functional testing, CI/CD workflows, and replicating customer scenarios. It improves efficiency by minimizing duplicate setup work, encouraging collaboration, and supporting scalable performance and stress testing, enabling teams to test faster and deliver high-quality products.
Key Testing Challenges for Networking Products
The primary challenges in testing networking products include:
- Simulating Real-World Conditions: This requires reproducing scenarios such as fluctuating network traffic, environmental changes, and multi-device interactions.
- Ensuring Interoperability: Networking products must seamlessly operate across various devices and protocols (e.g., WiFi, LTE, 5G), which requires comprehensive compatibility tests.
- Evaluating Key Metrics: Functional, scalability, performance, and stress metrics need to be rigorously validated across varied scenarios.
- Demand for Extensive Hardware: Testing requires significant infrastructure, including switches, servers, and simulation tools, which are costly to deploy and maintain.
Traditional approaches relying on dedicated resources are often inefficient and costly, though they may occasionally serve purposes such as familiarizing network lab trainees with equipment. CloudLAB offers a more agile alternative, enabling teams to allocate resources effectively, lower expenses, and streamline testing workflows
CloudLAB Services: IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS for Test Environment Efficiency
CloudLAB enables organizations to maximize the efficiency of their testing environments by offering distinct, cloud-based services —Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). Each layer addresses specific testing needs and supports different user groups, such as QA, development, customer support and automation teams.
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
IaaS provides raw computing resources and infrastructure, making it ideal for temporary, personal setups where individual teams can test and experiment with new features. The IaaS layer offers direct access to local or cloud resources through API interfaces or Infrastructure as Code (IaC), enabling the creation of custom test environments without predefined configurations.
- Primary Use Case: IaaS is best suited for exploratory testing, enabling QA, development, and automation teams to experiment and test isolated features or modules in a controlled environment.
- Raw Device Location and User Control: Teams can create and manage their testbeds independently, with full control over setup, configuration, and teardown processes. The level of control granted to a user varies based on their role within the system. Raw devices can be located across multiple local labs, private clouds, or public clouds, offering flexibility in deployment and management to suit a variety of testing needs.
- Software to Use: Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Infrastructure as Code (IaC) provides a secure and efficient way to manage raw devices, enabling users to save the current state of test environments and document the steps required to recreate setups in a database. It can generate detailed documentation outlining the processes to achieve specific states and supports maintaining multiple states for a device. Additionally, IaC facilitates the timely release of devices, typically at the end of the day, ensuring maximum resource availability for other users.
By dynamically scaling resources based on immediate needs and reusing released devices, IaaS reduces infrastructure costs and improves overall operational efficiency.
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
PaaS in CloudLAB supports dynamic test configurations, offering tools for on-the-fly testbed creation and providing a flexible environment for debugging regression, and functional testing. This layer is vital for teams that need to customize network configurations and test parameters based on changing requirements, rather than relying on fixed test cases or static network setups.
- Primary Use Case: PaaS is primarily used by QA and automation teams to create custom test environments and prepare regression and functional tests before deployment. It ensures system stability and reliability while enabling the reproduction of issues in both testing and customer-specific setups.
- Test Flexibility: PaaS allows teams to execute selected tests, making it valuable for debugging issues, analyzing system behavior across different setups, and validating scenarios that mirror real-world customer environments.
- Collaboration Across Teams: PaaS facilitates resource sharing among QA, development, and automation teams, enabling them to collaborate effectively in the same testing environment. This enhances the efficiency of debugging and streamlines the overall testing process.
- Software to Use: Network as Code (NaC): Network as Code (NaC) facilitates the dynamic creation of network configurations by allowing users to specify a list of devices and define their interconnections. NaC dynamically builds the required network while supporting the storage of multiple network configurations with tags. These tags can be shared across users or teams, ensuring consistent and efficient network creation and replication. Additionally, NaC generates text-based network diagrams and documents the steps required to establish specific configurations.
For further insights into scalable test setup frameworks, you can explore this foundational work on cloud-based testing for IAAS and PAAS. (https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10107317) Concepts are similar but with full equipment rather than parts of the equipment.
Software as a Service (SaaS)
SaaS in CloudLAB is tailored for structured, on-demand testing processes, supporting tasks such as continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD), large-scale customer deployments, system testing, and performance, functional, and stress testing. By providing pre-configured solutions, SaaS allows teams to focus on executing tests rather than managing the setup process.
- Primary Use Case: SaaS is ideal for handling end-to-end fixed testing scenarios, including CI/CD workflows and comprehensive evaluations for system, performance, and functional testing. It is particularly well-suited for production-grade testing and scaling to large deployments.
- On-Demand Dynamic Test Setup Access: SaaS provides dynamically created test environments including network setups and equipment tailored for CI/CD pipelines. Testing workflows are fully automated and repeatable.
- Software to Use: Automation as Code (AaC): Automation as Code (AaC) provisions the required equipment and dynamically establishes network configurations. It sets up automation environments, including deploying containers and managing configurations on software and simulators. After the test is completed, AaC promptly releases all equipment and network configurations, maximizing resource availability
SaaS in CloudLAB is a scalable and efficient solution for CI/CD, performance, and stress testing. By allocating resources dynamically and only when required, it significantly reduces costs compared to maintaining traditional test infrastructure.
Benefits of CloudLAB
Implementing CloudLAB’s IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS services enables organizations to optimize test resources effectively, addressing both underutilization and cost challenges. Key benefits include:
- Shared Equipment, Cost Savings, and Reduced Maintenance: CloudLAB enables organizations to share testbeds, improving the utilization of costly testing resources across teams and projects while reducing unnecessary setup and hardware expenses. It also lowers the cost and effort of maintaining physical testbeds by offering dynamic, on-demand setups that are used only when required.
- Improved Collaboration and Reduced Duplicate Setup Efforts: CloudLAB provides a distributed, cloud-based testbed where setups from any location can be accessed by anyone. Teams in different locations or time zones can share and reuse the same configurations, reducing the need to recreate setups for each team. QA, development, automation, and customer support teams can debug easily by sharing setup environment tags to replicate specific conditions, addressing the industry’s key challenge of issue reproduction across multiple teams. This minimizes repeated efforts, speeds up testing, and saves time on setup preparation.
- Significant Reduction in Test Preparation Time for Customer Deployment Scenarios: Customer support teams can simulate complex customer deployment scenarios within the lab environment, quickly replicating specific customer configurations and issues without extensive setup. This enhances the ability to troubleshoot, verify, and resolve issues more accurately and quickly.
- Enhanced Test Cycle Efficiency: CloudLAB enables quick test setup and teardown, helping teams run more functional, regression, performance, and stress tests in less time. This speeds up testing cycles and reduces the time needed to launch new features and updates.
- Centralized Data and Metrics for Continuous Improvement: CloudLAB’s cloud-based system allows teams to collect and review lab data in one location. This makes it easier to spot patterns, track resource usage, and identify bottlenecks, helping teams make better decisions to improve testing efficiency.
Conclusion
CloudLAB provides flexible, on-demand solutions for networking product testing with its IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS services. It supports resource sharing, customized test setups, and dynamic scaling to cut costs and improve efficiency. CloudLAB helps teams achieve comprehensive test coverage, run real-world simulations, and speed up time-to-market, all while maintaining high quality, making it a game-changer for modern testing.
Early-stage practical applications of remote LAB in teaching are discussed in the study https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1cc2/9c6c44e7dfb128543433c46eb7c47b1ef338.pdf. Although the context differs slightly, this resource highlights how remote lab environments have been used to enhance educational practices, offering valuable insights into their implementation and advantages.
References
Marco A. Aravena, & Andrés A. Ramos. (2009). Use of a Remote Network Lab as an Aid to Support Teaching Computer Networks.
Linh B. Ngo, & Jef Denton (2019). Using CloudLab as a Scalable Platform for Teaching Cluster Computing.
Network Bulls. (2019). An Inside View of the World’s Largest Cisco Networking Training Labs at Network Bulls
