GENI as a virtual laboratory for networking and distributed systems classes (abstract only)

This hands-on workshop will introduce GENI to instructors of computer networking and distributed systems classes. Instructors can use GENI [http://groups.geni.net/geni/wiki], an easy-to-use virtual laboratory, to improve the educational experiences of their students by having them experiment with new concepts without requiring expensive laboratory facilities. It has been used by over twenty graduate and undergraduate classes. GENI is being used by over 1200 researchers and educators. It enables them to run large-scale, well-instrumented, end-to-end experiments engaging real users. These experiments may be fully compatible with today's Internet, variations or improvements on today's Internet protocols, or indeed radically novel "clean slate" designs. GENI includes compute and communications resources distributed across the United States. GENI is "deeply programmable" i.e. experimenters can install their custom software or operating systems on the compute nodes and can program the behavior of the switches that connect these nodes. GENI is funded by the National Science Foundation and is free to use for research and education. Workshop participants will have the opportunity to set up and run experiments using GENI. They will also learn about class logistics when using GENI and support resources such as ready-to-use exercises. Those doing the hands-on activity will need a laptop running relatively a recent version of Mac OS, Windows or Linux; at least 4GB of memory; a modern processor (at least dual core and faster than 1.5 GHz) and a WiFi interface.