Linux Based Virtual Networking Laboratories for Software Defined Networking

Abstract

With the fully mature and a vast number of available virtualization solutions, there is an uptake in creating the opportunity for remote and/or virtual laboratories to either supplement or fully replace physical networking laboratories. Our approach focuses on nodes, rather than environments hosting the nodes. The paper addresses setting up virtual laboratories made of widely available, general purpose, operating systems based on Linux that act as a network operating system. We discuss several Software Defined Networking solutions, and lay out the configuration setup for virtual laboratories. We evaluate them by the opportunity they provide in the context of learning and a potential experience. We conclude with an observation that with an increasing number of Linux based network operating systems, management of network forwarding devices becomes management of servers, which leads to the unification of the cloud fabric.