PlanetLab
PlanetLab is a group of computers available as a testbed for computer networking and distributed systems research. It was established in 2002 by Prof. Larry L. Peterson and Prof. David Culler,[1] and as of June 2010 was composed of 1090 nodes at 507 sites worldwide. Each research project has a "slice", or virtual machine access to a subset of the nodes.
Accounts are limited to persons affiliated with corporations and universities that host PlanetLab nodes. However, a number of free, public services have been deployed on PlanetLab, including CoDeeN, the Coral Content Distribution Network, and Open DHT. Open DHT was taken down on 1 July 2009.[2]
PlanetLab members develop tools for the greater good of the community, and as a result each user has a wide choice of tools to use in order to complete regular slice maintenance tasks.