Playpen network provides fail-safe interactive
training.
In preparation for the first lunar landings in 1969 Nasa
astronauts practised their manoeuvres using a console hooked to a
simulator. By manipulating the data used for the simulations, Nasa
scientists were able to assess how the astronauts coped.
This was the inspiration behind Colin Pattinson's approach to
teaching future network managers who attend his BSc and MSc courses
at Leeds Metropolitan University.
He believed the way network management was being taught was too
classroom-based. In a live network, the manager will monitor
network traffic and nodes and looks for anomalies.
"While it is not too difficult talking about network trends and
deviations, there is a gap when trends and deviations are put into
practice," he said.
Pattinson's first attempt at breaking out of the classroom was what
he described as a "playpen" network. This network contained a few
nodes and allowed students to practise management for real.
However, the playpen could not simulate a large network and
building one would have been impractical, so Pattinson looked at
how he could create a network simulator.
His work led to the development of simulated "model agents" which
produce SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) formatted data.
This creates the illusion that the network messages are coming from
real network devices.
The simulations can be controlled to allow tasks to be graded by
difficulty, allowing the user to receive increasingly greater
exposure to more complex and sensitive elements in the
network.
Pattinson presented the idea at an Association of Computer
Machinery special interest group meeting in Barcelona in 1996.
Since then about seven MSc project students have helped him develop
the simulator, which is now used in the networking course
curriculum. "In this academic year 60 students have used the
system," he said.
There was a lot of interest in the simulator at this year's CeBIT
show in Germany. Pattinson believes his approach is unique and,
with government support from Business Trade International, the
university hopes to forge commercial partnerships.
The benefit of the simulator is that it gives a fairly realistic
simulation of the kind of situations that will occur on a network,
Pattinson said.
The students are exposed to failures and faults across a wide range
of networks and device types. Dedicated screens show the build-up
and causes of a fault situation and show what distress signals the
system will send out to enable an early diagnosis.
Pattinson has developed several test scenarios, including a crashed
node and router table corruption where the path through the network
is lost; congestion on the network causing buffer overflows;
failure on a network card where the replacement card has a
different network address and so may not be detected correctly; and
failure by applications to pick up TCP-IP messages.
Another area Pattinson's students are researching is a hacking
simulation, such as a denial of service attack. "Network managers
need to know the type of messages they will see if a denial of
service occurs," he said.
The simulator allows students to manage highly complex networks
where failure can be catastrophic. "As systems become more and more
complex and the risks attached to their failure become potentially
more serious, this simulation offers a fail-safe route to ensuring
that all users are up-to-speed before they are ever put in
control," he said.
Pattinson collects data on the tasks network administrators
undertake when the system is running under normal conditions. When
the simulator creates a failure, data is collected that show the
steps taken by the students to resolve the problem.
Pattinson hopes to build up a record of activities network
administrators always carry out on a network. This can then be used
to benchmark how the students respond to a network failure. "We are
looking to create a system to learn how a network manager should
respond to any given event," he said.
A spin-off project at the university aims to evaluate effective
network management by monitoring keystrokes. By collecting this
data and playing it back, students can examine the steps they took
to resolve a network issue and see where they could work more
quickly.
For the past three years, students on the BSc course have had to
undertake a timed test where they have just one hour to collect a
set of data about the network.
This simulator is based on a fixed network, but Pattinson expects
mobile networks to present new and unique challenges.
CV: Colin Pattinson
Colin Pattinson is principal lecturer in computing at Leeds
Metropolitan University. Along with the network simulator he is
overseeing several other research projects. One is a study of the
data and information transfer requirements of computer integrated
manufacturing networks.
Pattinson believes there are significant gains to be made from
treating networks as a resource to be managed. He aims to apply the
tools and techniques of network performance management to this
area.
The other area being researched by the computer communications
research team at Leeds Metropolitan University is quality of
service issues in multimedia applications.
What is BTI?
British Trade International is a government organisation
established to support the UK's trade and investment strategy. It
brings together the work of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and
the Department of Trade & Industry on trade development and
promotion of inward investment in the UK. BTI's two operating units
are Trade Partners UK, which aims to help companies trading
overseas and Invest UK, which aims to promote the UK as a
worthwhile location for inward investment.
www.tradepartners.gov.uk
www.invest.uk.com
Getting wired: tell us the future
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