Understanding ProtoGENI in Networking Courses for Research and Education

Hands-on lab experience is often necessary and important, but it requires time and financial investment in computer and engineering curricula. The Global Environment for Network Innovations (GENI) is a real-world, repeatable, programmable, at-scale, virtual infrastructure for experiments in a variety of computer science areas such as networking, security, and distributed computing sponsored by National Science Foundation (NSF). In this paper, we present an approach to understanding ProtoGENI, one of GENI resources, for networking research and education. Specifically, we have developed lab experiments and projects that help students to understand ProtoGENI for their course projects, capstone projects, and thesis research.