The entire lab network including terminal devices and access switches can be controlled from one network management station. Finally, the lab's equipment includes the protocol analyzer Domino 320 of Acterna company that can be used for analysis, load generation and manipulation of traffic streams at different points in the network.

For reasons of security, the terminal devices (PCs) have been equipped with a second ethernet card that can be connected to the faculty's existing user administration and exclusively serves the purpose of rights administration and authenticating users. The lab environment was furthermore equipped with additional devices that allow wireless access from terminal devices that are fitted with with the appropriate WLAN cards.

With the outlined equipment, the established lab meets the following basic requirements:

• replication of a realistic backbone network
• optional connections for different data applications
• modular, extendable access and end systems environment
• centralized network management and monitoring system
• high-performance systems for analysis and measurement

Teaching

The lab's instructional goal is to allow students to gain practical experience in configuring and operating network components that moves beyond mere theoretical knowledge. Both with the help of practical guidance and independent emulation of realistic case studies, students reinforce the theoretical concepts that underly typical assignments from the practice and increase their understanding of how to implement solutions. Thus, students can for instance experiment with the configuration parameters of the lab's devices to see how this affects the different scenarios.

Continuing Education

In the continuing education area, the educational offerings are meant to serve as complementary education for external students and for graduates of the faculty. Goal of the continuing education training in this area is to familiarize participants with the network technologies of the company Cisco and to enable them to solve all practical assignments in the context of wiring, routing, IP addressing and other network-related issues and, if necessary, to troubleshoot any problems that might arise. The network-related training aims at improving participants' chances to get a job and solidifying their knowledge in the area of networking.

Research

To be able to keep abreast of the outlined developmental trends continuously and without interruptions, doing research in the area of network technologies is indispensable. At the moment, starting points for applied research result from increased security requirements, technical manageability and cost efficiency.

Particularly in the context of its further development, the computer networks laboratory initiated a number of cooperative projects that deal with the topics of security in network infrastructures and the testability of heterogeneous system environments. Most recently, process data communication systems increasingly use classical communication protocols, which however still need to be examined extensively because of their insufficient real-time capability. This work area too aims at initiating research projects in future.

In sum, the established lab environment enables a variety of activities with the following emphases:

• evaluation and implementation of security concepts in networks
• design and construction of case studies to support teaching
• thesis research and supervision
• acquisition of third-party-funded research projects in the reliability analysis work area

Team

Professor Bernhard Geib; Professor Martin Gergeleit; Professor Reinhold Kröger; Bent Ahrens, Certified Information Scientist; Daniel Kloos, Certified Information Scientist and Carlos Henriques dos Santos, Certified Information Scientist.

Note

Please click on the links to find more information about current instructional use of the computer networks laboratory as well as about the simulation and dynamic reliability analysis research focus (in German only).

[Translate to English:] Team

Prof. Dr. Bernhard Geib, Prof. Dr. Martin Gergeleit, Prof. Dr. Reinhold Kröger, Dipl.-Inform. (FH) Bent Ahrens, Dipl.-Inform. (FH) Daniel Kloos, und Dipl.-Inform. (FH) Carlos Henriques dos Santos

Hinweis

Weiterführende Informationen über die aktuelle Nutzung des Rechnernetzelabors in der Lehre sowie zu dem Forschungsschwerpunkt Simulation und dynamische Zuverlässigkeitsanalyse finden Sie unter Labornutzung bzw. sAnalyze-Collection.