Using VMware VCenter lab manager in undergraduate education for system administration and network security

We have developed and managed a virtual laboratory environment by deploying the VMware vCenter Lab Manager and the VMware vSphere vCenter on a load-balanced cluster of eight ESX 3.5 servers and a storage area network of 10.8 Tera bytes. This system has been in use to conduct hands-on laboratory experiments in undergraduate education for computer security and system administration. Lab Manager provides remote access through the Internet using a common Web browser, such as Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. The way in which the Lab Manager manages and controls virtual machines and networking components provides additional convenience for instructors to implement laboratory exercises and for students to finish their experiments. In this article, we present the design of the system, introduce some of the features of the virtual environment, and discuss the experiences we have gained from developing and using this system. Compared with other existing virtualization platforms, Lab Manager provides more useful features and additional flexibility for the use in the education for information technology (IT), although there is still room to improve.

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