research-article

Xen worlds: leveraging virtualization in distance education

Authors:

ITiCSE '09: Proceedings of the 14th annual ACM SIGCSE conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education

Pages 293 - 297

https://doi.org/10.1145/1562877.1562967

Published: 06 July 2009 Publication History

Get Access

Abstract

The Xen Worlds project at Iowa State University was designed to provide a virtualized lab environment for the Information Assurance program. The large number of off-campus students, and a desire for high levels of security, drove many of the requirements for the Xen Worlds environment. Some of the requirements established for the project were: The environment needed to be equally accessible and easy to use for both on- and off-campus students. It needed to be isolated from the outside world and other students. The system had to be equally usable for students with limited computing and network resources. Costs had to be kept to a minimum.

The Xen Worlds environment has now been used to support several courses at both the undergraduate and graduate level. This virtual environment was equally accessible to on- and off-campus students on a 24/7 basis and supported numerous assignments in support of established curriculum requirements. Finally, surveys of students who used the Xen Worlds environment show that students have a favorable view of the project and view it as a useful and convenient learning tool.

References

[1]

Anderson, B., Daniels, T. E. 2006. Xen Worlds: Xen and the art of computer engineering education. In Proceedings of 2006 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition (Chicago, IL, June 2006.)

Crossref

Google Scholar

[2]

Armitage, W. D., Gaspar, A., and Rideout, M. 2007. A UML and MLN based approach to implementing a networking laboratory on a scalable Linux cluster. J. Comput. Small Coll. 23, 2 (Dec. 2007), 112--119.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[3]

Clark, B., Deshane, T., Dow, E., Evanchik, S., Finlayson, M., Herne, J., and Matthews, J. N. 2004. Xen and the art of repeated research. In Proceedings of the Annual Conference on USENIX Annual Technical Conference (Boston, MA, June 27 -- July 02, 2004). USENIX Annual Technical Conference. USENIX Association, Berkeley, CA, 47--47.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[4]

Descartes, R. 1988. Meditations on First Philosophy. In Descartes: Selected Philosophical Writings, John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Mursoch, Trans., Cambridge, U.K., Cambridge University Press, pp. 73--122.

Google Scholar

[5]

Du, W., Teng, Z., Wang, R. 2007. SEED: A Suite of Instructional Laboratories for Computer SEcurity EDucation. In Proceedings of SIGCSE'07, (Covington, KY, March 7--10, 2007). DOI = http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1227504.1227474.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[6]

Gaspar, A., Langevin, S., Armitage, W., Sekar, R., Daniels, T. 2008. The Role of Virtualization in Computing Education. In Proceedings of the 39th Annual SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, (Portland, OR, March 12--15, 2008). DOI = http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1352135.1352181.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[7]

Goldweber, M. and Davoli, R. 2008. VDE: an emulation environment for supporting computer networking courses. In Proceedings of the 13th Annual Conference on innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (Madrid, Spain, June 30 -- July 02, 2008). ITiCSE '08. ACM, New York, NY, 138--142. DOI= http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1384271.1384310.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[8]

Hess, J. 2008. Pdmenu: Simple to use menu program. 15-July-2008, http://www.kitenet.net/programs/pdmenu/.

Google Scholar

[9]

Krishna, K., Sun, W., Rana, P., Li, T., Sekar, R. 2005 V-NetLab: a cost-effective platform to support course projects in computer security. In Proceedings of the 9th Annual Colloquium for Information Systems Security Education. CISSE 05. (Atlanta, GA, June 6 -- 9, 2005).

Google Scholar

[10]

Lawson, E. A., Stackpole, W. 2006. Does a virtual networking laboratory result in similar student achievement and satisfaction?. In Proceedings of the 7th Conference on information Technology Education (Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, October 19 -- 21, 2006). DOI = http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1168812.1168839

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[11]

Lee, E. S., Raymond, D. R. 1993. Menu Driven Systems. In the Encyclopedia of Microcomputers, Volume 11, Allen Kent, James G. Williams, Eds., Marcel Dekker, New York, pp. 101--127.

Google Scholar

[12]

Wiseman, C., Wong, K., Wolf, T., and Gorinsky, S. 2008. Operational experience with a virtual networking laboratory. SIGCSE Bull. 40, 1 (Feb. 2008), 427--431. DOI= http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1352322.135228

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[13]

Xen Performance". University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory. 5-Nov-2004. http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/SRG/netos/xen/performance.html

Google Scholar

Cited By

View all

Chan M(2021)Bare-metal hypervisor virtual servers with a custom-built automatic scheduling system for educational use2021 Fourth International Conference on Electrical, Computer and Communication Technologies (ICECCT)10.1109/ICECCT52121.2021.9616679(1-5)Online publication date: 15-Sep-2021
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICECCT52121.2021.9616679
Liu WNiyaz QSun WJavaid A(2018)A Web-Based Lightweight Testbed for Supporting Network Security Hands-on Labs2018 IEEE International Conference on Electro/Information Technology (EIT)10.1109/EIT.2018.8500270(0498-0503)Online publication date: May-2018
https://doi.org/10.1109/EIT.2018.8500270
Hrzic FPoljancic DGrbac T(2016)Secure operations as congestion control mechanism within OpenStack based cloud laboratory2016 International Conference on Smart Systems and Technologies (SST)10.1109/SST.2016.7765646(129-134)Online publication date: Oct-2016
https://doi.org/10.1109/SST.2016.7765646
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Xen worlds: leveraging virtualization in distance education

Recommendations

Xen worlds: leveraging virtualization in distance education
ITiCSE '09

The Xen Worlds project at Iowa State University was designed to provide a virtualized lab environment for the Information Assurance program. The large number of off-campus students, and a desire for high levels of security, drove many of the ...
The role of virtualization in computing education
SIGCSE 08

Over the past years, many problems related to the system administration of laboratories for undergraduate system-oriented courses have found elegant solutions in the deployment of virtualization suites. This technological advance enabled these courses ...
The role of virtualization in computing education
SIGCSE '08: Proceedings of the 39th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education

Over the past years, many problems related to the system administration of laboratories for undergraduate system-oriented courses have found elegant solutions in the deployment of virtualization suites. This technological advance enabled these courses ...

Comments

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

ITiCSE '09: Proceedings of the 14th annual ACM SIGCSE conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education

July 2009

428 pages

ISBN:9781605583815

DOI:10.1145/1562877

General Chair:
Patrick Brézillon
UPMC, France
,
Program Chairs:
Ingrid Russell
University of Hartford, USA
,
Jean-Marc Labat
UPMC, France

ACM SIGCSE Bulletin Volume 41, Issue 3
ITiCSE '09
September 2009
403 pages
ISSN:0097-8418
DOI:10.1145/1595496
Issue’s Table of Contents

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 06 July 2009

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article

Conference

ITiCSE '09

Sponsor:

ITiCSE '09: Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education

July 6 - 9, 2009

Paris, France

Acceptance Rates

ITiCSE '09 Paper Acceptance Rate 66 of 205 submissions, 32%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 552 of 1,613 submissions, 34%

Upcoming Conference

ITiCSE '25

Sponsor:
sigcse

Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education

June 27 - July 2, 2025

Nijmegen , Netherlands

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

15
Total Citations
View Citations
428
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)4
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0

Reflects downloads up to 08 Feb 2025

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View all

Chan M(2021)Bare-metal hypervisor virtual servers with a custom-built automatic scheduling system for educational use2021 Fourth International Conference on Electrical, Computer and Communication Technologies (ICECCT)10.1109/ICECCT52121.2021.9616679(1-5)Online publication date: 15-Sep-2021
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICECCT52121.2021.9616679
Liu WNiyaz QSun WJavaid A(2018)A Web-Based Lightweight Testbed for Supporting Network Security Hands-on Labs2018 IEEE International Conference on Electro/Information Technology (EIT)10.1109/EIT.2018.8500270(0498-0503)Online publication date: May-2018
https://doi.org/10.1109/EIT.2018.8500270
Hrzic FPoljancic DGrbac T(2016)Secure operations as congestion control mechanism within OpenStack based cloud laboratory2016 International Conference on Smart Systems and Technologies (SST)10.1109/SST.2016.7765646(129-134)Online publication date: Oct-2016
https://doi.org/10.1109/SST.2016.7765646
Shipman PBull RSettle ASteinbach TBoisvert D(2015)Lab on a StickProceedings of the 16th Annual Conference on Information Technology Education10.1145/2808006.2808034(33-38)Online publication date: 29-Sep-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2808006.2808034
Niyaz QSun WXu RAlam M(2015)Light VNProceedings of the 2015 12th International Conference on Information Technology - New Generations10.1109/ITNG.2015.79(459-464)Online publication date: 13-Apr-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/ITNG.2015.79
Lee KTeng WWu JHuang KKo YHou T(2014)Multicast and customized deployment of large-scale operating systemsAutomated Software Engineering10.1007/s10515-013-0139-621:4(443-460)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10515-013-0139-6
Bull RArmitage WFriedman RBaker K(2013)Migrating a voice communications laboratory to a virtualized environmentProceedings of the 14th annual ACM SIGITE conference on Information technology education10.1145/2512276.2512286(189-194)Online publication date: 2-Oct-2013
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2512276.2512286
Wu JKo YHuang KHuang M(2013)Heterogeneous Diskless Remote Booting System on Cloud Operating SystemGrid and Pervasive Computing10.1007/978-3-642-38027-3_12(114-123)Online publication date: 2013
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38027-3_12
Dobrilovic DJevtic VStojanov ZOdadzic B(2012)Usability of virtual network laboratory in engineering education and computer network course2012 15th International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning (ICL)10.1109/ICL.2012.6402049(1-6)Online publication date: Sep-2012
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICL.2012.6402049
Gad RKappes MMueller-Bady RRitter I(2011)Network performance in virtualized environmentsProceedings of the 2011 17th IEEE International Conference on Networks10.1109/ICON.2011.6168488(275-280)Online publication date: 14-Dec-2011
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/ICON.2011.6168488
Show More Cited By

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

PDF

eReader

View online with eReader.

eReader

Abstract

References

Cited By

Index Terms

Recommendations