A platform for monitoring and management of laboratory courses, using web technologies

Abstract

As networking systems continue to evolve in complexity, more and more tools are emerging in order to better understand the emerging new technologies related to networking technologies. The computer science sector from its inception is a field of continuous changes and upgrades of existing technologies. Every day we see new protocols being incorporated and new ideas being proposed with the sole purpose of the most efficient use of the internet and its possibilities. Due to their complexity and need for backward compatibility, many challenges arise from developing, implementing and testing these technologies. This is where network emulation enters the stage. Αnd more specifically in the field of education where there is a great need for online classes which will offer profitable practical knowledge and an extensive theoretical basis, which can be achieved with the use of an network emulation tool. However, these tools are challenging to setup and maintain, in the laboratory environments of universities. In addition, for network research it is very costly to deploy a complete testbed topology containing multiple networked computers, switches, routers and data links to verify a certain network protocol or to validate proof of work over a prototype topology. The network simulators and emulators, in these circumstances, can save a lot of money and time in accomplishing this task. Network emulators particularly come very handy in allowing the network designers to test new protocols or to alter the existing ones in a controlled and secured environment. For this reason, emulated platforms are researched and studied upon. In this thesis, the goal is to study and use these emulators techniques with the purpose to use their tools to create easy, understandable and manageable exercises for universities labs. The idea is to support laboratory environments in universities using an emulation platform which will be running on a virtual machine in a Cloud service provider, thus eliminating the need for powerful hardware to be installed in the computers. The scenario is to use the EVE-NG emulation platform to create network topologies courses, with the purpose to study the use of dynamic routing protocols in order to comprehend how connection between router and Layer 3 routing occurs. In the proposed scenario the only requirement is the connection of the students to a specific IP address where the web UI of the platform will be visible. From there, the students will be able to enter the platform and start to interact with the labs.