What Else is Recommended for Everyone?

What Else is Recommended for Everyone?

The recommendations below include material that is needed for ARIEL (all free), and other optional extras that are either free or available at commercial rates.

Educational Resources

Free Extras

Optional Hardware

Cloud Server

Hard Work

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Educational Resources

Many free educational resources are available on line. Many experts have generously provided videos and detailed instructions with text and diagrams, often without charge. At the GNS3 Academy you will find many useful resources.

In addition to free resources, the GNS3 academy, and others such as Udemy and other on-line academies, offer excellent study materials on commercial terms.

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Free Extras

As you progress through ARIEL, you will be able to download additional free packages, such as: You will also have access to various ARIEL Network Simulation, Analysis and Optimization packages written either in the R programming language or Python, or as Excel Workbooks. The ARIEL packages and the Python and R programming system are all free. The Excel workbooks will run on your own copy of Microsoft Excel, or on Microsoft Office 365. Some, but not necessarily all, of the workbooks can also run on free software such as Google Sheets or Office Calc.

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Optional Hardware

It is possible to connect GNS3 with real-world networks, including your local PC, your wireless or wired link to the Internet, virtual servers in the cloud, and hardware devices. Some software-defined switches are available at low cost. For example, Northbound Networks sell a small SDN device for about $100. Instructions for including this device in your experiments and assignments are provided.

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Cloud Server

As a more advanced option, whether you run Windows, Macintosh, or Ubuntu for your GNS3 graphical user interface, you may choose to run the GNS3 server on a cloud service, such as Packet (See www.packet.net). This is something you could consider after you get some experience running everything on your own machine.

For a few cents per hour Packet will provide you with a bare-metal server at one of their global data-centers. You can perform all the data input, editing and control on your local PC, and then seamlessly offload the heavy computations to your server in the cloud. Note that you must pay rent for the server from the time it is allocated to you until the time you delete your software and make it available for other users, regardless of whether you have the server powered up or down. If you are an occasional user, you could save your configuration and then delete the server from your account while you don’t need it. As required, you can quickly (several minutes) get another bare-metal server, and restore your work to it.

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Hard Work

The quantity and quality of intellectual property that can be used for inter-networking, and has been made available for free is astonishing, and without historical precedent. In addition to educational resources, all manner of technology from small add-on applications through to production-level switching technology is available to all of us without a cent of expenditure. Both computer software and hardware designs are being made openly and freely available in many cases.

Of course, having obtained resources for free, it can require many hours of your hard work to get the full benefit from them. With sufficient effort on your part, I trust the resources linked to from ARIEL, and included within it, will prove to be of enormous value to you in your life-long learning about the principles and practice of networking.

Before you start learning about networking, you will need to practice your computing skills. I have provided some minimum-effort options as well as some more advanced suggestions. In any case, within current and emerging inter-networking:

“Software is the New Hardware”

by which I mean the value of the Intellectual Property in the inter-networking technology industry is migrating from special purpose computing hardware back* to computer software. In many developments from Network Function Virtualization, through Software Defined Networking, to Service Orchestration, and the application of advanced software to Network Management, there is a trend for more of the commercial value to reside in software, and for the hardware to become less highly differentiated and more like a commodity, general-purpose platform. Anyone who wants to be an inter-networking expert in the twenty-first century will need software skills and knowledge as a foundation.

* The migration of value is “back” to software because the very early routers consisted of specialized software running on general purpose computers. (See: https://www.networkworld.com/article/2870329/lan-wan/evolution-of-the-router.html).

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