Integration of virtualization technology into network security laboratory

Distance education has witnessed a tremendous growth in the past decade. Advances in Internet technologies have made it possible to deliver not only lectures, but also hands-on labs remotely. Virtualization technology enables multiple virtual machines and their applications to run simultaneously on a single physical computer. This eliminates the need to have multiple physical machines host diverse operating systems typically deployed in remote network security labs. In preparation for a course on intrusion detection systems (IDS), the instructor creates pre-configured virtual machines and network trace files for studentspsila use. These virtual machines are then installed by the students on their personal computers at home and used to conduct lab exercises. The virtual lab approach is different from the centralized remote laboratory because students run the lab on their own computers and do not depend on the remote servers. Additionally, the virtual environments allow rapid changes to be made to the lab exercises or environments thus allowing instruction with up-to-date technologies. Furthermore, the burden of maintaining centralized physical labs has been lifted from the institutionpsilas shoulders. Our approach to decentralized virtual lab-based distance education has been well received by our students.