Problem
Research questions and friction points this paper is trying to address.
Network Digital Twin
IoT-edge-cloud continuum
network validation
failure scenario testing
non-disruptive testing
Building a Low-cost Network Digital Twin for the IoT-Edge-Cloud Continuum Using Open-Source Tooling
🤖 AI Summary
This work addresses the challenge of validating network configurations and testing faults in IoT-edge-cloud environments without disrupting operational networks. The authors propose a low-cost, fully open-source network digital twin system that integrates Containerlab, Open vSwitch, ONOS, and Prometheus+Grafana to create a high-fidelity, low-overhead, end-to-end deployable artifact. This system enables real-time telemetry and SDN-based traffic scheduling tailored for industrial IoT (IIoT) edge scenarios. Evaluated on a physical Raspberry Pi-based edge WLAN testbed, the digital twin accurately replicates real network behavior, exhibiting a median RTT deviation of only 0.4 ms and a UDP throughput error of merely 0.03 Mbps. Furthermore, it successfully identifies virtualization-induced discrepancies in TCP throughput and packet loss.
📝 Abstract
Validating network configurations and testing failure scenarios in IoT-edge-cloud environments without disrupting live infrastructure remains an open operational challenge. This paper presents a low-cost, fully open-source Network Digital Twin (NDT) for IIoT edge deployments, built on Containerlab, Open vSwitch, ONOS, and a Prometheus+Grafana observability stack. The framework integrates container-native topology emulation, SDN-driven traffic engineering, and real-time telemetry in a single deployable artefact. Validation against a physical Raspberry Pi edge WLAN shows strong distributional convergence on RTT median (delta = 0.4 ms) and UDP throughput (delta = 0.03 Mbps). Remaining divergences on TCP throughput and packet loss are attributed to identifiable virtualisation artefacts, with root causes and remediation paths provided.
Innovation
Methods, ideas, or system contributions that make the work stand out.
Network Digital Twin
Open-Source Tooling
SDN
Containerlab
IoT-Edge-Cloud Continuum
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