Enterprise Software Service Emulation: Constructing Large-Scale Testbeds

TL;DR

This paper introduces a scalable emulation framework and environment called Kaluta for constructing large-scale testbeds of interconnected software services, enabling evaluation of non-functional qualities like scalability.

Contribution

It presents a meta-modeling framework for emulate-able service modeling and a high-performance emulation environment capable of simulating thousands of services concurrently.

Findings

Kaluta can emulate 10,000 servers on a single machine.

The testbed effectively mimics large networks of services.

Insights from emulation improved enterprise system design.

Abstract

Constructing testbeds for systems which are interconnected with large networks of other software services is a challenging task. It is particularly difficult to create testbeds facilitating evaluation of the non-functional qualities of a system, such as scalability, that can be expected in production deployments. Software service emulation is an approach for creating such testbeds where service behaviour is defined by emulate-able models executed in an emulation runtime environment. We present (i) a meta-modelling framework supporting emulate-able service modelling (including messages, protocol, behaviour and states), and (ii) Kaluta, an emulation environment able to concurrently execute large numbers (thousands) of service models, providing a testbed which mimics the behaviour and characteristics of large networks of interconnected software services. Experiments show that Kaluta can emulate 10,000 servers using a single physical machine, and is a practical testbed for scalability testing of a real, enterprise-grade identity management suite. The insights gained into the tested enterprise system were used to enhance its design.