A Virtual Testbed Orchestration (VITO) System for Education, Performance Evaluation, and Network Function Virtualization

Abstract

In recent years, the computer science world has seen a big shift from dedicated, highly specialised hardware to virtualised appliances that are cheaper and more flexible In the field of networking, those approaches also have great potential. This work will focus on leveraging virtualisation and software-defined networking for academic and data center-related purposes. We present a system to simplify the education of students and a system to allow testing and evaluation of new networking protocols in a virtualised environment without the need for real hardware apart from a virtualisation platform. For data center operators, we present a system to leverage network virtualisation without the need for expensive appliances for network functions. All technologies in this work are not only scoped for networking specialists but are also usable by engineers with only general knowledge of the networking field. The procedures and technologies explained in this work lead to scientific work that has been published at different conferences.