A description of the Virtual IT Teaching Laboratory in use by the School of IT at Bond University. A talk at the Queensland Computing Education Conventicle 2009.

1. Teaching IT Subjects with Real-World Software
Virtual IT Teaching Laboratory
Michael Rees
School of Information Technology
Bond University
mrees@bond.edu.au

2. Overview
• Problem with practical assessments
– Software scope
– Dedicated teaching labs
• Solution: use virtual teaching lab
• Pilot semester
• VITTL: Virtual IT Teaching Lab
– Operation to date
– Extensions
• Lessons learned and way ahead
© 2009 Michael Rees Queensland Computer Education Conventicle 2009 2

3. The Problem
• Make industrial-class software available for student
practical assignments:
– Licensing usually not a problem
– Hardware/network support is a problem
• Physical teaching labs:
– Dedicated machine for one software package
expensive
– Shared installs are complex with interference problems
– Students need extensive access to labs outside class
– No administrator access
– No permanent settings
© 2009 Michael Rees Queensland Computing Education Conventicle 2009 3

4. The Solution – Virtual Labs
VMware
Solution
© 2009 Michael Rees Queensland Computing Education Conventicle 2009 4

5. Virtual Center
• VITTL administrator controls all aspects of the virtual
laboratory:
– start/stop virtual machines and change the
capacity of virtual devices
– instantiate new virtual machines, make clones and
delete existing ones
– monitor the performance of each virtual machine
and the overall loads on VITTL1 and 2
– trigger the migration (VMotion) of a virtual
machine between VITTL 1 and 2
© 2009 Michael Rees Queensland Computer Education Conventicle 2009 5

6. Virtual Machine Images
• Students allocated one or more virtual machines per
subject with virtual networks where needed
• Virtual machine images:
– Built by lecturer to exact requirements:
• Base OS: students install and manage software
• OS with required software installed
– Internet access for download/install
– 24/7 access from any on-campus machine and via
Internet using Citrix server
– Allow students administrator access (if needed)
– Constant running for server work and compute-
intensive apps
– Broken VMs replaced by clones in minutes
© 2009 Michael Rees Queensland Computing Education Conventicle 2009 6

7. VM Access
• Any on-campus machine
• Internet machine via Citrix
© 2009 Michael Rees Queensland Computing Education Conventicle 2009 7

8. VITTL Experience To Date
• Pilot semester 082 (2 dedicated servers):
– Web apps 20 x Winserver 2003
– Computational Finance 6 x Windows XP
• Full production:
– Used by 9 advanced IT subjects over semesters
083, 091 and 092
– Web
apps, middleware, ecommerce, BI, databases, mo
dular programming
– 50 to 100 VMs per semester
– Mix of Windows XP, Vista, Server 2003 and Ubuntu
© 2009 Michael Rees Queensland Computer Education Conventicle 2009 8

9. Discoveries
• Portability: students can demo problems/assignments on
instructor machines in lecture rooms, labs and staff offices
• VITTL servers able to support more VMs than planned
• VITTL server main memory the limiting factor
• Take great care when showing students network adapter
and firewall configurations
• Compute-intensive VMs run slower than expected
• Port access and virtual networks need careful planning
• Student acceptance very high
• Some IT students surprisingly lack machine admin skills
© 2009 Michael Rees Queensland Computing Education Conventicle 2009 9

10. Way Ahead for VITTL
• Extensions:
– Automated VM cloning and deployment
– Single sign-on accounts
– Central VM connect for students
• Handover to central technical support:
– Develop model VM
create/clone/deploy/monitor/teardown cycle
– Archive and backup policy
© 2009 Michael Rees Queensland Computing Education Conventicle 2009 10

11. Resources
• Talk links at:
– http://dotdolfin.com/talks/#qcec2009
• Virtual IT Teaching Lab site:
– http://vittlproject.pbworks.com
© 2009 Michael Rees Queensland Computer Education Conventicle 2009 11