Kollaps/Thunderstorm: Reproducible Evaluation of Distributed Systems

Abstract : Reproducing experimental results is nowadays seen as one of the greatest impairments for the progress of science in general and distributed systems in particular. This stems from the increasing complexity of the systems under study and the inherent complexity of capturing and controlling all variables that can potentially affect experimental results. We argue that this can only be addressed with a systematic approach to all the stages and aspects of the evaluation process, such as the environment in which the experiment is run, the configuration and software versions used, and the network characteristics among others. In this tutorial paper, we focus on the networking aspect, and discuss our ongoing research efforts and tools to contribute to a more systematic and reproducible evaluation of large scale distributed systems.