Teching network softwarization with SDN Cockpit: An open ecosystem for students, network administrators and others

Abstract

This paper introduces SDN Cockpit, an easy-to-use and open ecosystem for teaching network softwarization based on mininet and the Ryu controller. The ecosystem allows candidates to gain hands-on-experience with SDN in prefabricated scenarios without having to deal with potentially complex details such as traffic generation. It provides useful tooling for instructors and automated evaluation for assignments. The paper discusses the design goals, the architecture and the workflow of the ecosystem. First experiments with SDN Cockpit show that the approach can improve the motivation and the learning experience of the candidates.