This project requests incremental funding for the Regional Laboratory for Applied Network Engineering Research and Training (RLANRT) project to build a living on-line repository for network engineering instructional materials and training.
Continual exponential growth in traffic and bandwidth usage is imposing severe strain on the Internet, and the gap between the immediate needs of the Internet infrastructure and current classroom content is growing. New computer science and engineering solutions are needed, but producing the necessary skills and talent is hampered by the small size of the current pool of knowledgeable network engineering practitioners.
Under the auspices of RLANRT, JSU proposes to coordinate a Web-based repository for network engineering curriculum materials. Resources are the current instructors from within and outside this institution, and Internet vendors such as CISCO, NOVEL, and Microsoft. These vendors have a wealth of training materials related to their hardware and software, and the objective is to draw together the myriad topics in a continual updated resource for both teachers and infrastructure whose reliability and throughput at various levels will be secured by the activities of engineers, users, and service providers alike.
