Program Description

As an educator who teaches IT topics, how do you illustrate the concepts of networking to your classes? Do you resort to the white board and static two dimensional network diagrams? Don\'t you find this approach tests the limits of how realistically you can explain what happens on a network? The background behind the Network Hawk (NH) project was to create a stand-alone network monitor capable of giving the user a real handle on how networks actually interact. It is convenient to think of a network communication as happening directly between your computer and another one on the other side of the building or the other side of the world. But the reality is much more than that. There are DNS servers involved, gateway routers, firewalls and all sorts of other hosts that your data must pass through on it\'s way to it\'s destination. NH was developed to aid lecturers and teachers in properly demonstrating what really happens behind the scenes on networks. From the developer\'s own experiences, we know that white boards and network diagrams don\'t always cut it - often they are just simplified versions of what\'s really happening. The 3D virtual world generated by NH provides a birds-eye view of the network, letting students see exactly what the sequence of events are in bringing up a website, or sending an email. The suite of software that comes bundled with NH is specifically designed with educators in mind. For instance, while it will model your network in vivid three dimensions, it also includes the capacity to simulate a virtual network. This is ideal for when the local area network is not large enough or lacks necessary elements to fully explain the concept you are teaching. Also included in the NH software suit is the ability to record a network capture to your database and then play it back later, as frequently as you want. This allows you to record a specific network event and then replay it to numerous classes without needing to reconfigure NH or the network. Recording traffic exchanges can even be replayed by students later on their own time, if they need to refamiliarize themselves with the concepts discussed.