Preliminary Results - connorethanjay/Champlain-College-CNCS-Notes GitHub Wiki

Building a Private-Cloud Infrastructure Provider for Technical Educational Institutions

Online technical education serves 300,000+ students annually across institutions of all sizes, yet lacks the datacenter infrastructure that traditional colleges provide. Small and medium institutions face particularly acute challenges: physical datacenters require $500K-$2M capital investment plus ongoing operational expertise. These are resources beyond reach for many programs. This capstone project presents LabScale, a multi-tenant private-cloud infrastructure platform that operates as an educational MSP (Managed Service Provider), providing colleges with outsourced infrastructure similar to how business MSPs provide outsourced IT services, delivering scalable and secure student environments through a pay-per-student model.

INTRODUCTION

LabScale addresses the infrastructure gap through a model analogous to Managed Service Providers (MSPs) in corporate IT. Just as small businesses outsource IT infrastructure to MSPs rather than building internal IT departments, educational institutions can outsource lab infrastructure to LabScale rather than building physical datacenters. The educational MSP model transforms infrastructure economics from capital- intensive to operational expense, replacing $500K-$2M upfront datacenter investment with per-student-per-semester pricing that scales with enrollment. This approach also includes operational expertise e.g. network & systems administration, maintenance, etc, eliminating the need for institutions to hire specialized staff while ensuring technology remains current through continuous upgrades rather than 5-7 year equipment depreciation cycles. Critically, the model democratizes infrastructure access across institution sizes: a community college program with 50 students accesses the same enterprise-grade equipment as universities serving a program with 500+ students, breaking the historical pattern where only well-funded institutions could provide the best-in-class technical education.

METHOD

TOPOLOGY DESIGN

LabScale's architecture derives from five core requirements:

  1. Multi-Tenancy: Isolate 2-3 institutional clients with complete network separation (no cross-tenant traffic or visibility).
  2. Scalability: Support 80-100 concurrent students initially, with a clear upward path to grow.
  3. Authenticity: Provide genuine access (not simulation) to topics that institutions are teaching students eg. Active Directory.
  4. Web Access: Enable students to access labs via browser from any device without the need for a VPN or software installation.
  5. Operational Resilience: Maintain 95%+ uptime with redundant paths and automated failover.

PHASE 1 (Q1-Q4 2024): THREE TIER ARCHITECTURE

  • Sufficient for personal use.
  • Limited scalability for providing services to clients
  • Single point of failure at the core.

PHASE 2 (Q1 2025 - Q4 2026): SPINE & LEAF DEMO

  • Sufficient for personal and capstone project use.
  • Load balancing across spines.
  • Scalability over time.
  • Hosting the official demo for LabScale Infrastructure.

PHASE 3 (Q1 2027+): PRODUCTION INFRASTUCTURE

  • Complete routing isolation per tenant.
  • Independent OSPF processes per VRF.
  • Separate management planes.