CODEF

Developed within Horizon Europe CODECO · Grant 101092696 ↗

The CODECO Experimentation Framework is a flexible, scientific infrastructure for research on the Edge–Cloud Continuum. Researchers use CODEF to design, deploy and evaluate Kubernetes-based experiments — end-to-end and reproducibly — across heterogeneous backends, from public cloud to bare metal and fully local setups. It automates the full experiment lifecycle, from infrastructure provisioning and cluster formation through execution, result processing and report generation, and supports asynchronous, multi-user experimentation through a web-based interface. CODEF runs on nodes contributed by partner institutions and expandable through community node contribution, lowering the barrier to rigorous, repeatable edge–cloud research.

Request an account + Contribute a node soon Read the docs Source on GitLab ↗
CODEF
1. Reserve nodes
2. Deploy cluster
3. Run workload
4. Collect metrics
5. Generate report

The federation, live

● auto-refresh
codef LIVE GR at-1 ATHENA RC 1 16c · 64GB · 12 VMs GR at-2 ATHENA RC 2 6c · 128GB · 9 VMs GR uom UoM 16c · 32GB · 32 nodes EU aws AWS EC2 8c · 64GB · 9 nodes ~ local Local 8c · 16GB · 3 VMs online local/dev
CLUSTER.LIVE↻ auto
● nodes/62  in-use/12  free/50
— experiments run —
llm/tiny-deploy    ok
cni/k8s-distro-eval ok
k8s/edge-perf      ok
ad/argo-workflows   ok
energy/sec-tradeoff ok
— tenants —
codeco · athena · uom · partners/3

Architecture

Four containerized microservices, one declarative experiment descriptor.

IM
Infrastructure Manager
Allocates VMs / bare-metal nodes from heterogeneous providers (xen, AWS, VirtualBox).
RM
Resource Manager
Bootstraps OS images, snapshots, and SSH access on contributed nodes.
EC
Experiment Controller
Runs declarative experiment descriptors, cross-layer, with reproducible artifacts.
RP
Results Processor
Aggregates metrics and emits LaTeX-ready figures and PDF reports per run.

Core Team & Organizations

CODEF is developed within the Horizon Europe CODECO project (Grant 101092696).

Contributing Entities

Organizations contributing compute nodes to the CODEF federation.

Publications

Research papers describing CODEF and its use in edge–cloud experiments.

workshop paper
An Open-Source Experimentation Framework for the Edge Cloud Continuum
G. Koukis, S. Skaperas, I. A. Kapetanidou, V. Tsaoussidis, L. Mamatas · IEEE INFOCOM CNERT Workshop, 2024
IEEE Xplore →
workshop paper
Performance Evaluation of Kubernetes Networking Approaches across Constraint Edge Environments
G. Koukis, S. Skaperas, I. A. Kapetanidou, L. Mamatas, V. Tsaoussidis · IEEE INFOCOM ICCN Workshop, 2024
IEEE Xplore →
workshop paper
A Pragmatical Approach to Anomaly Detection Evaluation in Edge Cloud Systems
S. Skaperas, G. Koukis, I. A. Kapetanidou, V. Tsaoussidis, L. Mamatas · IEEE INFOCOM ICCN Workshop, 2024
arXiv →
workshop paper
Performance Evaluation of Automated Multi-Service Deployment in Edge-Cloud Environments with the CODECO Toolkit
G. Koukis, I. Dermentzis, V. Tsaoussidis, J. Lenke, F. Wolk, D. Uceda, G. Sanchez, M. A. Puentes, J. Serrano, P. Karamolegkos, R. C. Sofia · 2026
arXiv →
workshop paper
Evaluating CNI Plugins Features & Tradeoffs for Edge Cloud Applications
G. Koukis, I. A. Kapetanidou, V. Tsaoussidis, S. Skaperas, L. Mamatas · IEEE ISCC ECO Workshop, 2024
IEEE Xplore →
journal paper
Trade-Offs in Kubernetes Security and Energy Consumption
I. Dermentzis, G. Koukis, V. Tsaoussidis · MDPI Urban Science, 2026
MDPI →
conference paper
Comparative Stress Testing of Kubernetes Distributions and CNI Plugins
G. Koukis, S. Skaperas, L. Mamatas, V. Tsaoussidis · BalkanCom 2025
IEEE Xplore →

Demos & Deliverables

Public demonstrations and project deliverables produced within CODECO.

video demo
CODECO Experimentation Framework demo
Video demonstration of the CODECO Experimentation Framework, presenting its workflow for creating, managing and executing edge–cloud experiments.
Watch on YouTube ↗
workshop demo
HiPEAC 2025 · ML4ECS Workshop — CODECO Demo
Live demonstration of CODEF running federated edge–cloud experiments at the Machine Learning for Edge–Cloud Systems workshop, HiPEAC 2025.
Zenodo record ↗
workshop demo
HiPEAC 2026 · ML4ECS Workshop — CODECO Demo
Follow-up demonstration showcasing new capabilities including multi-cluster experiment orchestration and automated results collection at HiPEAC 2026.
Video demo ↗
deliverable
D18: CODECO EdgeNet Framework Version 2.0
Official CODECO project deliverable documenting the second major release of the EdgeNet-integrated experimentation framework, including federated node management and experiment lifecycle tooling.

IRCEP Challenge

Open research challenges conducted within the CODECO project, targeting reproducibility and evaluation of edge–cloud orchestration strategies. View challenges on GitLab ↗

1
CODEF and Benchmarking — Dynamic Stress Testing
Dynamic stress testing of edge–cloud infrastructure using CODEF, benchmarking node and cluster behaviour under varying load conditions.
GitLab ↗
2
CODEF and Benchmarking — Security Mechanisms
Benchmarking and evaluation of security mechanisms for CODEF, measuring the overhead and effectiveness of security configurations across federated edge nodes.
GitLab ↗
3
CODEF and Benchmarking — Testing, Debugging & AI Assistant
Testing and debugging workflows for CODEF experiments, augmented with an AI-powered assistant to accelerate troubleshooting and result interpretation.
GitLab ↗
Ready to experiment?

Access the portal to create and deploy containerized and Kubernetes-based edge experiments across the federation. Node allocation, cluster setup, and teardown are fully automated.

Request an account
# what CODEF automates end-to-end
 
✓ [1/4] nodes reserved
      12 VMs · athena-rc1 + uom
✓ [2/4] k3s + calico deployed
      master×1 · workers×3 · ready
✓ [3/4] workload running
      cni/k8s-distro-eval · 34m
✓ [4/4] results collected
      metrics · figures · teardown