Online 24 hour hardware lab frontend server configuration

• Main Author: Kumaran, Sathiya
• Other Authors: Oh Hong Lye
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Computer science and engineering::Computer systems organization::Computer system implementation; DRNTU::Engineering::Computer science and engineering::Computer systems organization::Computer-communication networks
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/62682
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The main purpose of this project had to been to elevate the current online hardware E-learning platform to the internet. As such, in realizing this objective one had to de-centralize current backend and realize entirely new underlying architecture and topology. The approach was based on maximizing three primary attributes - accessibility, scalability and flexibility. Accessibility entails allowing the system to be accessed by all and any users regardless of their network origin or setup. Subsequently, Scalability in the form of forging a system that would easily and readily accommodates for all and any potential experiments. Lastly, ensuring the systems inculcates a granular level of flexibility in catering to any new technology or requirements that may arise in the present and future. Various implementations were devised to bypass the firewall to maximize the accessibility of the system. Each subsequent implementation offered a new facet of benefit and improvement than the previous. As such, this progressive journey led to a final implementation that not only had fulfilled the bypass of the firewall, but had it done in the most efficient and feasible way for the system. After having established a ubiquitous channel of access to the system, one proceeded to augment the system to be easily accommodative to new experiments. This led to the development of a Java program, the Experiment Registration Software, which any potential experiment host can install on any platform to link up with the system. Software was developed to dynamically help and manage all the video streams of the system and automatically relaying the video streams from the NTU network. These programs work in tandem with one another to allow for a readily scalable and self-managing server architecture. After having extended the coverage of the system and its hosting capability through realizing accessibility and scalability, one proceeded on to ensure the system would be kept abreast of existing and upcoming technologies - flexibility. Harnessing the granularity of customization of Drupal, one was able to develop many custom modules and interfaces that not only performs on par with the former but also brings further benefits along with it.The feedback collected from a live e-learning exercise for a body of 300 engineering students attested to the potency and acts a testament to an e-learning portal that not only caters to students but also grows with the school’s academic pursuits and values.