Multi-Vendor Emulator System to Perform Network Laboratory Works Online

Modern computer networks require highly qualified specialists to support and maintain existing networks and to design and create new ones. Preparing such specialists can be very costly, mainly because of many different network devices from different vendors, that are required to prepare such specialists. Taking that into the account there is a need for scalable and cheap instruments that can help to prepare computer network specialists. Looking back at the COVID-19 pandemic such systems should have a way to use them remotely, so the education quality would now drop in case educational institutions will not be accessible because of new restrictions. This work describes a system, that uses popular network simulator PNetLab as main entity with custom-made programs, that allows to overcome simulator’s limitations, for example the limit of 10 users per simulator instance, at the same time extending its capabilities by adding the ability to automatically assess practice works performed by users on PNetLab and enhancing systems scalability. Proposed system was created, using Python 3 to create custom systems, and deployed on HSE’s internal server. Also, to collect access and grade requests the system was integrated with project 588 Grader Constructor. The paper consists of 54 pages, 12 pictures and 3 tables.