2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The increasing demand for resilient and secure networks has become a critical concern in today’s digital world. Due to a shortage of hands-on experience opportunities, a significant challenge is training students to acquire practical networking skills. While the foundational theory of networking is essential, ensuring that students are ready for the workforce necessitates proficiency in the actual design and implementation of networks. To bridge this gap, it is imperative to provide students with opportunities to practice in a real-world context. Educational institutions often possess physical networking equipment, however it is generally expensive to operate, requires maintenance to reset it for different labs, and often requires outside support in cases where Virtual Private Network (VPN) is allowed for remote access. This paper introduces a solution to these challenges by incorporating a flexible platform that emulates real networking software and allows students to practice at any time from any location. Cisco Modeling Labs (CML) for Education was selected as the platform to support the proposed curricula environment. CML is the only commercial platform that offers official Cisco software and seamless integration with various operating systems hosted in virtual machines (VMs). CML server deployment options are versatile, allowing installations on school servers, Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud, and even hosted individually on student computers. Students can then access these training tools with any browser, further reducing the barrier to entry.

In this paper, we detail the development and delivery of practical lab exercises that cover the entire network lifecycle, including network design, configuration, and troubleshooting using CML. We provide preconfigured labs that are meant for easy integration into any networking class. These labs involve designing parts of the network to satisfy a set of requirements and troubleshooting network issues. Educators can further expand on these labs by modifying them to meet requirements based on their coursework. We also provide labs that teach cybersecurity concepts where students learn to build, demonstrate, and mitigate cyberattacks, gaining comprehensive knowledge of network security. Integrating the physical Internet of Things (IoT) devices is also explored, furthering the knowledge needed to interface with IoT devices. The purpose of this paper is to provide educators with an effective alternative to physical networking equipment and provide a comprehensive set of custom labs that can be integrated in their curriculum. The practical labs presented in this paper provide students at high school, college, or professional level with skills and knowledge required for the modern digital workforce.