Using the Cloud to Teach Computer Networks

STEM education can enormously benefit from cloud technology. The cloud can offer instructors and students (whether local or remote) on-demand, dedicated, isolated, unlimited, and easily configurable compute and storage resources. The cloud can significantly reduce cost and expenditure on lab construction and maintenance. Due to these features, the cloud has been widely adopted by many universities and schools throughout the world. In this paper, we show how the cloud can be utilized to replace traditional physical computer networks laboratories. In particular, we demonstrate how cloud-based laboratory exercises related to computer networks can greatly help students in acquiring almost all crucial computer networks skills. The cloud we used for this course was the Amazon Web Services (AWS) public cloud. However, the use cases and approaches are equally applicable to other cloud platforms.