Obtaining university practical competences in engineering by means of virtualization and cloud computing technologies

The acquisition of practical competences is an essential point of any engineering curricula, being more challenging than the acquisition of theoretical competences. For this, the use of laboratories is totally essential, and, in the case of distance education, this becomes even more challenging since students are located physically distant from the laboratories that they should use to obtain such competences. For this reason, UNED has developed a system to create and manage virtual remote laboratories, aimed at improving the way how practical exercises are conducted. This paper details how these laboratories are implemented for a subject in the field of network services in operating systems, and presents an evaluation showing that the system is useful and easy to use.