Design and Deployment of a Testbed for SmartNIC and Programmable Data Plane Experimentation

This paper presents the design and deployment of a virtualized testbed that facilitates experimentation and instruction in programmable network systems. The platform integrates Smart Network Interface Cards (SmartNICs), Programmable Data Plane (PDP) switches, and the Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK), within a cloud-based orchestration framework to reproduce high-performance, real-world networking scenarios. It supports line-rate processing, enabling real-time applications such as telemetry, encrypted traffic inspection, and malware detection. Through a series of use cases, we demonstrate how the testbed enables advanced experimentation by offloading infrastructure functions to the data plane, achieving low latency, high throughput, and high scalability. The system also provides users with guided labs for learners and is accessible via NETLAB+ for remote use. Future work includes federation with national-scale infrastructures such as FABRIC to broaden access and support multi-institutional collaboration.