Virtual Machines and Networks - Installation, Performance Study, Advantages and Virtualization Options

The interest in virtualization has been growing rapidly in the IT industry because of inherent benefits like better resource utilization and ease of system manageability. The experimentation and use of virtualization as well as the simultaneous deployment of virtual software are increasingly getting popular and in use by educational institutions for research and teaching. This paper stresses on the potential advantages associated with virtualization and the use of virtual machines for scenarios, which cannot be easily implemented and/or studied in a traditional academic network environment, but need to be explored and experimented by students to meet the raising needs and knowledge-base demanded by the IT industry. In this context, we discuss various aspects of virtualization - starting from the working principle of virtual machines, installation procedure for a virtual guest operating system on a physical host operating system, virtualization options and a performance study measuring the throughput obtained on a network of virtual machines and physical host machines. In addition, the paper extensively evaluates the use of virtual machines and virtual networks in an academic environment and also specifically discusses sample projects on network security, which may not be feasible enough to be conducted in a physical network of personal computers; but could be conducted only using virtual machines

Software test automation : a design and tool selection approach for a heterogeneous environment

textThis report describes a design approach for implementing a software test automation solution that can accommodate existing test processes in an organization. The process of implementing a software test automation solution is a large undertaking and requires careful planning to avoid unsuccessful implementations. This report outlines a design that can integrate with existing business and development processes in an organization, and recommends automation and development frameworks for achieving the test automation goals. Considerations for a heterogeneous test environment with varying types of supported operating systems, such as Windows and Linux, and multiple test execution environments, such as Java and .NET, have been made in this design and in the tool selections for the system implementation. The report also describes some of the challenges and caveats of automation in a heterogeneous environment along with recommended solutions to these challenges.Electrical and Computer Engineerin

MAC OS X VERSION 10.5 “LEOPARD”

Mac OS X version 10.5 “Leopard” is the sixth major release of Mac OS X. This operating system is the successor of Mac OS X v10.4 "Tiger". Leopard was released on 26 October 2007, and is available in two variantsmacos x

Differential virtualization for large-scale system modeling

Today’s computer networks become more complex than ever with a vast number of connected host systems running a variety of different operating systems and services. Academia and industry alike realize that education in managing such complex systems is extremely important for computer professionals because, with computers, there are many levels of detailed configuration. Configuration points can occur during all facets of computer systems including system design, implementation, and maintenance stages. In order to explore various hypotheses regarding configurations, system modeling is employed – computer professionals and researchers build test environments. Modeling environments require observable systems that are easily configurable at an accelerated rate. Observation abilities increase through re-use and preservation of models. Historical modeling solutions do not efficiently utilize computing resources and require high preservation or restoration cost as the number of modeled systems increases. This research compares a workstation-oriented, virtualization modeling solution using system differences to a workstation-oriented, imaging modeling solution using full system states. The solutions are compared based on computing resource utilization and administrative cost with respect to the number of modeled systems. Our experiments have shown that upon increasing the number of models from 30 to 60, the imaging solution requires an additional 75 minutes; whereas, the difference-based virtualization solution requires an additional three (3) minutes. The imaging solution requires 151 minutes to prepare 60 models, while the difference-based, virtualization solution requires 7 minutes to prepare 60 models. Therefore, the cost for model archival and restoration in the difference-based virtualization modeling solution is lower than that in the full system imaging-based modeling solution. In addition, by using a virtualization solution, multiple systems can be modeled on a single workstation, thus increasing workstation resource utilization. Since virtualization abstracts hardware, virtualized models are less dependent on physical hardware. Thus, by lowering hardware dependency, a virtualized model is further re-usable than a traditional system image. If an organization must perform system modeling and the organization has sufficient workstation resources, using a differential virtualization approach will decrease the time required for model preservation, increase resource utilization, and therefore provide an efficient, scalable, and modular modeling solution

Access control in semantic information systems

Access control has evolved in file systems. Early access control was limited and didn't handle identities. Access control then shifted to develop concepts such as identities. The next progression was the ability to take these identities and use lists to control what those identities can do. At this point we start to see more areas implementing access control such as web information systems. Web information systems has themselves started to raise the profile of semantic information. As semantic information systems start to expand new opportunities in access control become available to be explored. This dissertation introduces an experimental file system. The file system explores the concept of utilising metadata in a file system. The metadata is supported through the use of a database system. The introduction of the database enables the use of features such as views within the file system. Databases also provide a rich query language to utilise when nding information. The database aides the development of semantic meaning for the metadata stored. This provides greater meaning to the metadata and enables a platform for rethinking access contro

Windows credential theft: Methods and mitigations

Compromising Windows account credentials, especially in a domain environment, is a critical phase in an attack against an organization. This paper will first survey the most common tools and techniques used to uncover usernames and their plaintext credentials in standard red team procedures. These methods are compared against the new proposed method that uses low level hooking in the local security authority subsystem service to stealthily compromise plaintext credentials upon login. The latter has many advantages over pre-existing tools designed to capture credentials on Windows based computers. Finally, mitigation procedures will be examined that are designed to thwart credential theft or limit further domain compromise

C-ME: A 3D Community-Based, Real-Time Collaboration Tool for Scientific Research and Training

The need for effective collaboration tools is growing as multidisciplinary proteome-wide projects and distributed research teams become more common. The resulting data is often quite disparate, stored in separate locations, and not contextually related. Collaborative Molecular Modeling Environment (C-ME) is an interactive community-based collaboration system that allows researchers to organize information, visualize data on a two-dimensional (2-D) or three-dimensional (3-D) basis, and share and manage that information with collaborators in real time. C-ME stores the information in industry-standard databases that are immediately accessible by appropriate permission within the computer network directory service or anonymously across the internet through the C-ME application or through a web browser. The system addresses two important aspects of collaboration: context and information management. C-ME allows a researcher to use a 3-D atomic structure model or a 2-D image as a contextual basis on which to attach and share annotations to specific atoms or molecules or to specific regions of a 2-D image. These annotations provide additional information about the atomic structure or image data that can then be evaluated, amended or added to by other project members