Facilities

Teaching Labs

The School of IT has a number of general purpose PC labs for use with Microsoft Windows, LINUX and other operating systems implemented via virtual PCs.

In addition the School has two labs oriented towards the teaching needs of communications and security. The labs feature well spec'd Pentium IV - 3GHz (2GB RAM) PCs and a comprehensive array of voice and data communications equipment including:

• Routers
• Switches
• PIX Firewalls
• Wireless bridges, Access Points and antenna
• Wireless site survey kits
• Analogue and VoIP phones
• Atlas Adtran Frame-Relay, ISDN and PSTN WAN switches
• Asterisk PABXs with FXO, BRI and PRI interfaces.

These labs are available 24 x 7 for students with a registered student identity card.

Netlab - online router and switch laboratory

To provide remote access to laboratory equipment the School of IT has implemented NDG's Netlab system.

Netlab allows students to book and access a "pod" of three routers using any Internet connected PC. This allows convenient access from home. The valuable ability to automatically save the state of a network configuration and resume where you left off on a subsequent booking greatly increases "productive" learning time.

The environment is not a virtual network but a web based front-end to real equipment.

Netlab environment

The Netlab facility allows for a maximum of 16 simultaneous pod bookings although in practice this may be reduced in order to create larger pods for specialist classes or assignment work.

Students can access Murdoch's Netlab pods here.

Online course materials

The University actively encourages its staff to make course materials and resources available online through its WebCT online learning system. You will generally find that lecture slides and course outlines will be available for download.

Some staff will also make audio recordings of their lectures available online using the University's ILecture system.

For units using Cisco Systems Network Academy curriculum an extensive array of online curriculum, review exercises and configuration simulations are made available both through WebCT and via Cisco Systems own web site.