Overview

NETLAB Professional Edition^™ is a customized, Internet based network lab for instructor led training. NETLAB_PE allows organizations to use the power of the Internet to teach students by facilitating direct interaction with real network equipment. NETLAB_PE is a customized remote lab solution that uses your own lab topologies and branding.

Benefits:

Provide scheduled lab access
Increase student lab time
Work in teams
Menu-driven system administration
Automates lab management and cleanup tasks
Recover erased flash and passwords
Share sessions with your students
Manage configuration files
Record and assess student lab work

Remote Lab

NETLAB_PE allows students to get more lab time and get the maximum use of your lab equipment.

NETLAB_PE provides scheduled 7x24 access to lab equipment. The session sharing feature supports instructor led classroom lectures, team collaboration, and individual student practice. Students can be grouped into teams and work together from different locations.

NETLAB_PE also allows a student to cycle the power on a device, so even password recovery exercises can be conducted remotely.

Scheduler

The NETLAB_PE scheduler provides controlled access to your lab equipment. All lab access is by reservation, using the scheduler.

Lab access is terminated at the end of a lab reservation. Automation prepares the lab for the next session.

Because NETLAB_PE is a proxy server, only one open IP address and two TCP ports are required for all lab access functions. Lab resources and supporting control devices sit safely behind the server on a private VLAN.

Automation

Using NETLAB_PE, you can easily put routers into a known state, recover lost passwords, or even recover an erased flash.

In fact, NETLAB_PE will do this for you automatically at the end of each lab reservation. NETLAB_PE's features allow you to manage your lab from anywhere on the Internet.

Configuration Management

Instructors will save hours of valuable class time by using NETLAB_PE's configuration file management tools for loading and saving configurations by device or entire lab.

With one click of a mouse you can return to a configuration you created last night, one you used during class last week, or even your favorite troubleshooting example from last semester.

Classroom Lectures

NETLAB_PE can be used in the classroom as a lecture tool. Built-in connection sharing allows instructors to share the console port of a router, switch, or firewall.

Users can also share the keyboard, video, and mouse of a lab PC.

NETLAB_PE's configuration management and automation allow instructors to spend more time teaching and less time managing the lab.

Assessment

Instructors can use the archive feature to rapidly assess how a student or team arrived at a solution.

NETLAB_PE records the commands issued on all routers, switches, and firewalls. All activity is analyzed and sorted into a "who", "what", "when" and "where" table format. Each entry is hyperlinked so that output of each command can be easily viewed.

Configuration files and device output are also saved with each lab session. The instructor may view this data online, or receive it automatically by e-mail.

Administration

The NETLAB_PE server is an appliance. All administration is web based or menu driven. No operating system experience or system administrator knowledge is necessary.

The administrator interface provides all the functions necessary to manage the server, equipment pods, system logs and services. Software updates are automatically obtained over the Internet.