SLICES-Sustainability - A Sustainable Digital Research Infrastructure for Networked IT Systems

• Applicants: Professor Dr.-Ing. Georg Carle; Dr. Sebastian Gallenmüller
• Subject Area: Security and Dependability, Operating-, Communication- and Distributed Systems
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 566292327

Testbeds are a widely used tool for data-driven research in the area of computer networks. Multiple German research groups from this domain operate testbeds at their local universities. The focus area of each research group is reflected by their local testbed, i.e., every research group operates highly specialized equipment, such as programmable switches, 5G campus networks, or Internet of Things nodes, as part of their local testbeds. Currently, these testbeds are operated as isolated islands, using their own experiment toolchains, administrative tools, and modes of operation, leading to a waste of spare resources. In the SLICES-Sustainability project, we plan to connect the existing platforms, granting scientists access to a heterogeneous research equipment platform. Connecting these platforms creates a more powerful research infrastructure with a modest investment in new hardware. We further plan to improve testbed operation and usage through shared services such as a common API for experiment workflows or shared user management and access components. Increasing the usage of testbed resources, helps amortize the CO$_2$ budget for creating the resources. Service consolidation helps avoid expensive, redundant developments and management across participating research groups. Furthermore, we plan to include approaches to measure energy consumption and incentivize researchers to use the resources more sustainably by powering off unused equipment or shifting experiments to times with high availability of green energy. As part of SLICES-Sustainability, we plan to collaborate with three professors, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Stephan Günther (TUM Heilbronn), Prof. Dr. Michael Menth (Universität Tübingen), and Prof. Dr. Tobias Hoßfeld (Universität Würzburg). We plan to connect their testbeds to create a prototype of a distributed testbed platform. SLICES-Sustainability is closely aligned with the SLICES-RI initiative. SLICES-RI is currently creating a large-scale research infrastructure funded by the EU's long-term funding scheme, ESFRI. The testbed created during SLICES-Sustainability will be the stepping stone towards a more extensive German and European research testbed as part of SLICES-RI.

• DFG Programme: Further Instrumentation Related Funding