All computer science students at the University of Applied Sciences of Eastern Switzerland (OST) have to work on a so-called «SE project». This module is not about the product itself, but about project management and working in a team. Nevertheless, four students wanted to develop something that is close to the net and could be useful in the future. Knowing that we had to do a live cycle of our WAN emulator appliance in the network lab, it was agreed with the students that an alternative based on open source components should be developed.

After the project was completed, the «WEmulate» project was further developed at the Institute for Networks and Security and has been in use in class for a year. WEmulate can be installed on hardware or used as a virtual appliance.

With version 2.0, the project is now better anchored in the open source community and the product is already being used worldwide.

WEmulate Modules

The project was developed with a module-based approach in mind. Since we use WEmulate a lot in virtual environments, our goal was to develop a CLI tool. Since we need to use the application with our students in the lab, we decided to also create an API and frontend module that provides an easy-to-understand graphical interface for the students.

The CLI module provides the entire core module of WEmulate. Therefore, it handles all requests from the API module with its Python packages. The module was written with modern and clear frameworks.