Network simulators and Virtual Machines the default gate way for African Admins

BY Unknown

The Networking and system administration industry in Africa is growing up in high speed the fact that the number of computer users is increasing daily and cloud computing is kicking on the content makes inevitable for people to consider system and network administration as the career option.
  A network simulator is a software program that imitates the working of a computer network. In simulators, the computer network is typically modeled with devices, traffic etc. and the performance is analyzed. An example of my favorite simulator was Graphic Network Simulator (GNS3). GNS3 is a graphical network simulator that allows simulation of complex networks. Click here to watch youtube tutorial on GNS3.
The question that remain is how will Africa be able to survive with the speed of the rivals the Middle East and Europe while the resources especially hardware are inadequate and expensive not only to individuals but also to some of the IT companies and training institution.

Few years back when I was learning network administration I faced the same challenges, I wanted to understand how to under the logic behind the network connection but I couldn’t afford to get the switch, server or even the basic requirement the router to practice the knowledge I obtained theoretically from my trainer. This was disturbing knowing that I can’t even get the logic behind several diagrams of switch and routers showing computers connected to them. Then I came to realize the only medicine for poor communities to survive and at least get the knowledge about network administration is through Network simulators and emulators. A network simulator is a piece of software or hardware that predicts the behavior of a network, without an actual network being present. .
GNS3 is a graphical network simulator that allows simulation of complex networks.
To provide complete and accurate simulations, GNS3 is strongly linked with:
Dynamips a Cisco IOS emulator
Dynagen a text-based front end for Dynamips
Qemu  a generic and open source machine emulator and virtualizer
VirtualBox a free and powerful virtualization software
GNS3 is an excellent complementary tool to real labs for network engineers, administrators and people wanting to study for certifications such as Cisco CCNA, CCNP, CCIP and CCIE as well as Juniper JNCIA, JNCIS and JNCIE.
It can also be used to experiment features of Cisco IOS, Juniper JunOS or to check configurations that need to be deployed later on real routers. Thanks to VirtualBox integration, now even system engineers and administrators can take advantage of GNS3 to make labs and study for Redhat (RHCE, RHCT), Microsoft (MSCE, MSCA), Novell (CLP) and many other vendor certifications.
This project is an open source, free program that may be used on multiple operating systems, including Windows, Linux, and MacOS X.
Now three years after studying my Cisco Network administration am doing am studying Window Server 2008 Administration and guess what am using Oracle Virtual Box to integrate my client computers to my virtual Window Server Operating system installed in Virtual Machine. Yes as African students is difficult to attain some knowledge due to the lack of resources but out there number of Open source application are there waiting for you to come and exploit them make the use of the search engine whenever you stack and you fill you need assistance.