Abstract
Computer networking protocols have become important domain knowledge for electrical engineering professionals. The learning-by-doing approach has shown its effectiveness to learn these complex protocols by reproducing research results. In this paper, we design a web-based ns-3 lab platform by integrating various open-source modules for beginners to get hands on network simulations to learn networking protocols with a smoothed learning curve. This platform consists of a vue-based front-end and a docker-based back-end to support elastic on-demand capacity expansion. We implement a simulator scheduling module based on Node.js and restify to achieve load balancing for reducing the simulation waiting time. We conduct a measurement study to evaluate the performance of this prototype system. The measurement results demonstrate the technical feasibility of the prototype design to develop a scalable but user-friendly computer network simulation platform for massive open online lab courses.
D. Zeng, Z. Zhang and J. Chen—These authors contributed equally to this work.
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Acknowledgment
The authors would like to express their gratitude to the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments which the quality of this paper very much. This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of 61972172) and the teaching research fund by the Huazhong University of Science and Technology (no. 2018077).
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Zeng, D., Zhang, Z., Chen, J., Hei, X. (2021). Developing an Interactive Web-Based Programming Platform for Learning Computer Networking Protocols. In: Song, H., Jiang, D. (eds) Simulation Tools and Techniques. SIMUtools 2020. Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, vol 369. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72792-5_48
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72792-5_48
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