Using CloudLab to Teach Cloud Security
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Short overview of the module
This module begins with an introduction to CloudLab through a set of slides.
We will then have each participant build their own cloud! You will each use an OpenStack profile supplied by CloudLab. Each of you will have independent resources, your own computers on CloudLab, and full administrative access to the Cloud that you will create. We will have you explore the CloudLab interface, and then have you use your cloud to create some VMs and administer the cloud. You will be able to do things you couldn’t do if you were using someone else’s cloud.
We then provide a hands-on tutorial using CloudLab resources to use OpenStack on CloudLab to create your own cloud.
This module could be used in a junior-level class, such as Operating Systems or Networking. It is designed as a self-contained module that could be used as is, slides and all. It could also be modified to fit into the course you are teaching. If you decide to use this module, we would highly appreciate if you could simply send us an email letting us know in what course you plan to use this module. Any suggestions for improvement are also very welcome. And if you wish to share your own modified version of this module with other instructors, we could host your module on our site (with due credit to you of course).
Required background / Target students
This module is designed for students who are in an undergraduate class that teaches Operating Systems or Networking, within a curriculum in Computer Science or Computer Engineering. It assumes the student is already familiar with basic concepts of operating systems or networking.
Learning goals
After this module is taught as part of a Computer Science Systems course, the student will:
- be familiar with CloudLab as a free and valuable resource for experimentation;
- know how to use the default Openstack profile on CloudLab to setup their own cloud; and
- be able to set up and run experiments on a CloudLab testbed, demonstrated through the example deployment of MPI and Hadoop clusters.
Reading
- An Integrated Experimental Environment for Distributed Systems and Networks, Brian White, Jay Lepreau, Leigh Stoller, Robert Ricci, Shashi Guruprasad, Mac Newbold, Mike Hibler, Chad Barb, and Abhijeet Joglekar, Proceedings of the 5th Symposium on Operating Systems Design and Implementation (OSDI) 2002.