Unified Software-Defined Online Network Experiment Platform for Campus Education

With the rapid development of network science and technology, experiment course plays a more and more important role in higher education. However, network experiments in colleges and universities are of low efficiency and poor flexibility because of limitations in different operation methods, device types, vendors and location distribution. This paper describes a network experiment platform based on software-defined network to solve these limitations for educational uses. Combined with the characteristics of SDN, we divide the platform's architecture into network management layer, control layer and agent layer for communication network. The software defined platform is open, programmable, and realize centralized control and management of multi-vendor equipment located in different regions to satisfy large-scale experiments which is interdisciplinary and cross-region. At present, this platform is deployed cross several buildings in the campus of BUPT, and provides unified portal webpage for remote control through PC or intelligent phone. Hundreds of students have used the platform to complete their experiments of computer network and optical network. The next step is to control and manage more types of devices to enhance the richness and diversity of online experiments in campus education.