EFCC: a flexible Emulation Framework to evaluate network, computing and application deployments in the Cloud Continuum

In recent years, the number of devices connected to the Internet (and hence the data traffic) has significantly increased. The adoption of the Internet of Things paradigm, the use of the MicroServices Architecture for applications and the possibility of deploying such applications at different layers (fog, edge, cloud), makes the selection of an appropriate deployment a critical task for network operators and developers. In this paper, an emulation framework is proposed to allow them make a decision for the network, computing and application deployment in the cloud continuum, while satisfying the required Quality of Service. The framework is compatible both for IP and SDN network paradigms and is extensible to different types of scenarios thanks to its approach based on Docker containers. The evaluation over a realistic network scenario shows that it is extensible to any scenario and deployment required by the research community working on the cloud continuum.