Edge computing requires the complex software interaction of geo-distributed, heterogeneous components. The growing research and industry interest in edge computing software systems has necessitated exploring ways of testing and evaluating edge software at scale without relying on physical infrastructure. Beyond simulation, virtual testbeds that emulate edge infrastructure can provide a cost-efficient yet realistic environment to evaluate edge software. In this experience paper, we share lessons learned from building a total of five edge software testbeds. We describe pitfalls in architecture and development as well as experiences from having students use our testbed tooling in distributed systems prototyping classes. While we remain confident that building custom testbed tooling is the right approach for edge computing researchers and practitioners alike, we hope this paper allows others to avoid common mistakes and benefit from our experience.

翻译：边缘计算需要地理分布、异构组件之间复杂的软件交互。随着学术界和工业界对边缘计算软件系统的兴趣日益增长，有必要探索在不依赖物理基础设施的情况下大规模测试和评估边缘软件的方法。除模拟外，能够模拟边缘基础设施的虚拟测试平台可为评估边缘软件提供一种经济高效且贴近实际的环境。在这篇经验论文中，我们分享了构建总共五个边缘软件测试平台的经验教训。我们描述了架构和开发中的陷阱，以及学生在分布式系统原型设计课程中使用我们的测试平台工具的经验。尽管我们仍然认为构建定制测试平台工具是边缘计算研究人员和实践者正确的做法，但我们希望本文能帮助他人避免常见错误，并从我们的经验中受益。