On 9 and 10 November, students on the BSc (Hons) Computing programme had the opportunity to visit a working Cisco lab environment as part of their Networking Infrastructure module.
Dr Alex Moucha, who is a Cisco-certified instructor, explains the benefits of this kind of work. "As part of the course, the students learn how to design, build, configure and maintain small- to medium-sized networks. Because these include a lot of devices, we rely on an accurate and free-to-use simulator from Cisco, named Packet Tracer.
"I want the students to get in touch with real devices. Being an avid fan of Cisco technology, I built my own lab to be able to learn, practice and test new things without the risk of disconnecting an entire company. I invited the students to my personal lab to see, touch and feel the real thing and realize that, even if they use a simulation in their projects, the simulation is really accurate and in fact what they learn and the experience they get in the assignments perfectly match the requirements for a real world scenario.