A Reconfigurable LAN-Based Laboratory for Real-World Experience

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Most academic computer laboratories are tightly controlled, homogeneous, and difficult to reconfigure. Laboratory assignments using these labs are limited to traditional application programming and simulation, with little genuine exposure to other tasks related to a computer information system. This project involves initiating the first phase of a reconfigurable, heterogeneous, local-area-networks (LAN)-based lab that reflects real-world environments in order to provide students with practical, hands-on experience on realistic assignments. The lab consists of a multiprotocol router hub serving 10 small LANs: 7 Pentium LANs, and 3 Macintosh LANs. Each LAN has three computers, just sufficient for many useful assignments. Additional computers can be added in the future to make the lab truly heterogeneous. The smart router hub makes the lab easily reconfigurable and allows the LANs to be isolated for various experiments. Students may thus be able to have sole control of a LAN to work on assignments that cannot be supported otherwise. Examples are database installation, database administration, security control, turn-key client and server system development, network installation, management and performance analysis, internetworking and interoperability, groupware installation and management, etc. This lab may serve as a reconfigurable LAN-based lab model for other universities interested in providing real-world experiences and several technical papers can be written. The lab can ultimately be used to provide practical experience to all computer science courses. In particular, the courses Network Protocol and Design of Database Systems are being immediately improved. The lab is also critical to other courses, such as Applications Software and Computer Science Project.