PAPER EXPANDING USABILITY OF VIRTUAL NETWORK LABORATORY IN IT ENGINEERING EDUCATION Expanding Usability of Virtual Network Laboratory in IT Engineering Education http://dx.doi.org/10.3991/ijoe.v9i1.2388 Dalibor Dobrilovic, Vesna Jevtic, Borislav Odadzic University of Novi Sad, Zrenjanin, Serbia Abstract—This paper deals with importance of virtual network laboratories usage in IT engineering education. It presents the particular virtual network laboratory model developed for usage in Computer Networks course as well. This virtual network laboratory, called VNLab, is based on virtualization technology. It has been successfully tested in educational process of Computer Network course for IT undergraduate students. Its usability for network related courses is analyzed by comparison of recommended curric- ula’s of world organizations such as IEEE, ACM and AIS. This paper is focused on expanding the usability of this virtual network laboratory to other non-network related courses. The primary expansion field is in domain of IT System Administration, IT Systems and Data Security and Operating Systems as well. The possible learning scenarios, learning tools and concepts for making this system applica- ble in these three additional fields are presented by the analyses of compatibility with recommended learning topics and outcomes by IEEE, ACM and AIS. Index terms—component; Computer Network course; System Security course, System Administration course, engineering education; virtual network laboratories; virtualization technology I. INTRODUCTION There are numerous ways for adopting practical and functional knowledge about computer networks and networked systems. The first one is to use laboratories with real network equipment, which enable students to work in real network surrounding. The problems that can occur in this case are laboratories’ cost and availability. Laboratories with real network equipment also have limited access, considering the simultaneous work for certain group of students. The second way of teaching practice can help to over- come these problems. For example, software tools for network modeling and simulation can be used. They have simulated environment designed for analysis and behav- ior prediction of Information and Communication Tech- nology Infrastructures, including applications, servers and network technologies. Simulation software tools available nowadays are:  OPNET IT Guru software is discrete event network simulator in computer networks that support large number of simulations and scenarios for educational and commercial usage. OPNET IT Guru Academic edition is used at more than 500 universities for re- search and teaching purposes. Its commercial version is used in thousands of enterprises and government institutions all over the. [1]  Ns-2 (Network Simulator) provides simulation inter- face for TCP/IP networks [2], routing and multicast protocols over wired and wireless networks. Ns-3 [1, 3, 4] is free discrete event network simulator [5] that is used for networking research and education. Apart from above mentioned tools there are also: Bosom NetSim, Tetcos NetSim, OMNeT++, GNS-3, Cisco Packet Tracer and others. This paper concerns the third approach in teaching the computer networking concepts. It has emerged in the last several years and suggested virtual network laboratories based on virtualization technology. Its rapid development is closely related to the virtualization software break- through on the market in the last few years. [6] The virtual network laboratory based on virtualization technology, called VNLab, is designed at Technical Faculty “Mihajlo Pupin” Zrenjanin (University of Novi Sad, Serbia) in order to meet the requirements in teaching networking concepts and to be used in Computer Net- work course. The usability of VNLab for that purpose is precisely determined in the initially research [7]. This paper addresses the expansion of VNLab usability in other courses in Computer Science fields, not strictly related to computer networks, by using the similar meth- odology. Methodology for determining the VNLab extended usability is based on comparison with courses related to recommended curricula’s of international organizations such as IEEE, ACM and AIS. These three organizations have recommended five determined areas in the field of Computer Science such as: Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Information Technol- ogy, Software Engineering and Information Systems. The main motivation for this research is to find effec- tive and low cost solutions for teaching future Computer Science experts at higher educational institutions, appli- cable in more courses beyond the computer networks. This paper presents the model of virtual network labo- ratory (named VNLab) with remote access based on virtualization technology, as well as description of the laboratory exercises, specially developed for this envi- ronment. At the end of the paper, the assessment of its expanded usage and support for other courses, beyond the network related ones is presented as well. II. VIRTUAL NETWORK LABORATORIES The virtual network laboratories and its features are briefly explained in this section. Virtualization software proved itself as efficient enough for virtual laboratories creation [8, 9, 10, 11]. These laboratories have multiple applications. The basic one is to create experimentation 26 http://www.i-joe.org