Mid Sweden University

This is a project that deals with network emulators for training purposes, where everything is based on open-source applications. The goal of this project was to evaluate GNS3 and CORE emulators and answer the question, if and how they can be used in educational purposes for students and teachers. The study begins by briefly describing the various emulators available through open-source, where it was chosen to focus on the following network emulators IMUNES: Marionnet, Mininet, NetKit, GNS3 and CORE. The evaluation was conducted using a form, and GNS3 and CORE emulators run on a Linux-based operating systems to test all functions and various applications available within the tools. The results showed that both emulators work great to make use of open-source applications that can emulate router functions to emulate network topologies with different routing protocols such as RIP, OSPF and BGP. The evaluation also showed that both emulators are excellent tools to be used by people with minimal knowledge in programming, because of its user-friendly interface that helps one to build complex topologies using drag-and-drop functionality only. The conclusion of the study is that both emulators work well for educational purposes to develop network technology, router protocols and Linux skills for students, as well as to create a virtual environment to develop their skills with which they also can experiment with their skills. To install the network emulators GNS3 and CORE and related applications took about 30 minutes per tool, as well as taking GNS3 23 MB and Core 10MB hard disk space to be installed without any accessory applications.

Why these two tools work well for training purposes is that both emulators has integrated support for a large numbers of applications and the use of simple user interface to emulate network environments. In addition, the tools are completely free to all students and teachers, therefore everyone have the same opportunities to access them. The report recommendation is to use the emulator CORE precisely because the utility has so many features integrated within itself, and it is such a simple tool to use.