SLICES-FR aims to offer equipment and services for experimentation in areas related to networks and distributed systems (Cloud, HPC, Edge, IoT, 5G). Our approach is to offer material resources that are agnostic to the many targeted research areas. By decompartmentalizing equipment, we facilitate the carrying out of complex experiments combining heterogeneous resources, such as:
- A complete 5G operator network on which user terminals are registered
- A data processing chain from the connected object to the server in the cloud via ISP-type operator networks
Depending on the configuration and handling possibilities of the equipment, we classify our hardware resources into 3 categories and 7 types:
- Open System: Full control of the equipment software stack including the ability to install and modify the low-level operating system and/or high-level software
- Server-class machine: powerful server in rack format (e.g. Dell, HPE, etc.)
- Small form factor machine: computer capable of running a GNU/Linux type OS (e.g. NUC, Jetson, Rasperry Pi, BeagleBone, etc.)
- Embedded devices: microcontroller oriented to embedded systems (e.g.: Arduino, STM32, ESP32, Pico, etc.)
- Network devices: reprogrammable network equipment at the control plane and/or data plane level (e.g.: whitebox switch, P4 switch, Wi-Fi Access Point, etc.)
- Configurable System: users can only modify certain equipment parameters according to the possibilities of the OS or firmware
- Network appliances: network equipment based on manufacturer firmware (e.g. router, switch, LoRaWAN Gateway, etc.)
- SDR devices: radio equipment allowing programming of the physical layer (e.g. USRP, GNU/Radio, etc.)
- Closed system: closed systems that cannot be modified outside of certain parameters authorized by the manufacturer
- 5G/IoT appliances