The Virtual Computer Networks Lab: On the Design and Implementation of a Location Independent Networks Laboratory in Higher Education

Christian Baun, Martin Kappes, Henry-Norbert Cocos, Malte Koch, Maurizio Petrozziello

2025

Abstract

This paper describes a novel virtual platform for university teaching, which in particular allows the creation and use of complex IT infrastructures even for non-experts. Until now, complex network infrastructures in teaching have usually not been realizable virtually or physically with reasonable effort. However, they are essential to fundamental courses such as computer networks, distributed systems, or IT security. The platform described in this work enables a flexible and practical offer for lecturers, scientists, and students simultaneously by making complex IT infrastructures virtually available quickly and easily. It thus offers new possibilities for designing and utilizing virtual resources and is based exclusively on free software components. The project uses the hypervisor technology Proxmox Virtual Environment, which, together with the distributed storage solution CEPH as an object storage service, offers a virtualization platform for providing virtual resources. The successful use in computer science courses is demonstrated and evaluated. It is shown that the effort for setting up practical laboratories is signifficantly reduced by the virtual learning platform in contrast to the physical lab.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Baun C., Kappes M., Cocos H., Koch M. and Petrozziello M. (2025). The Virtual Computer Networks Lab: On the Design and Implementation of a Location Independent Networks Laboratory in Higher Education. In Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Computer Supported Education - Volume 1: CSEDU; ISBN 978-989-758-746-7, SciTePress, pages 199-207. DOI: 10.5220/0013199400003932

in Bibtex Style

@conference{csedu25,
author={Christian Baun and Martin Kappes and Henry-Norbert Cocos and Malte Koch and Maurizio Petrozziello},
title={The Virtual Computer Networks Lab: On the Design and Implementation of a Location Independent Networks Laboratory in Higher Education},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Computer Supported Education - Volume 1: CSEDU},
year={2025},
pages={199-207},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0013199400003932},
isbn={978-989-758-746-7},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Computer Supported Education - Volume 1: CSEDU
TI - The Virtual Computer Networks Lab: On the Design and Implementation of a Location Independent Networks Laboratory in Higher Education
SN - 978-989-758-746-7
AU - Baun C.
AU - Kappes M.
AU - Cocos H.
AU - Koch M.
AU - Petrozziello M.
PY - 2025
SP - 199
EP - 207
DO - 10.5220/0013199400003932
PB - SciTePress