EXTREME: combining the ease of management of multi-user experimental facilities and the flexibility of proof of concept testbeds

The experimental testbed for research enabling mobility enhancements (EXTREME) is being developed to allow researchers (i.e. users) of the CTTC to test networking algorithms and technologies in a close-to-real scenario. Basically, EXTREME development focuses on combining the ease of management of multi-user experimental facilities with the flexibility allowed by proof of concept testbeds. Its main goals are: 1) to reduce time from scenario conception by the researcher to the start of the measurements phase, 2) to provide an abstraction of the underlying physical resources to researchers so that they can focus on functionalities rather than low-level configuration issues of the machines, 3) to provide a generic framework to ease the realization and analysis of performance measurements and 4) to allow the rapid adoption and testing of new emerging technologies in a close-to-production environment. The main initial focus of EXTREME is on attaining these goals in wireless environments, which, in general, are more challenging than wired ones. This paper describes its design goals, current status, and some application scenarios where EXTREME has been used