  Recent developments in softwarization of networked infrastructures combined
with containerization of computing workflows promise unprecedented compute
anywhere and everywhere capabilities for federations of edge and remote
computing systems and science instruments. The development and testing of
software stacks that implement these capabilities over physical production
federations, however, is not very practical nor cost-effective. In response, we
develop a digital twin of the physical infrastructure, called the Virtual
Federated Science Instrument Environment (VFSIE). This framework emulates the
federation using containers and hosts connected over an emulated network, and
supports the development and testing of federation stacks and workflows. We
illustrate its use in a case study involving Jupiter Notebook computations and
instrument control.
