What is Gini?
Gini (Gini is not Internet) is an open-source toolkit for creating virtual micro Internets. It provides lightweight and virtualized elements for hosts, routers, switches, controllers, and other networking components that can be interconnected to build virtual network. Gini provides a user-friendly GUI-based tool, called gBuilder for designing and controlling network topologies.
Gini5 features
Gini supports the teaching and learning of computer networking: both traditional network and software-defined network features are provided by the software. More specifically, version 5 of Gini comes with:
- Faster virtual hosts that run as Docker containers.
- Software-defined networking that relies on OpenvSwitch and OpenFlow protocol.
- Cloud components that serve as a demonstration of private network, load balancing, service discovery and orchestration.
- Service function chaining using OpenFlow protocol.
Teaching
Gini has been used in computer networks courses at McGill University including:
- Comp 535: Computer Networks
- Comp 598: Topics in Cloud Computing
License
Gini version 5 is distributed under an MIT license.
Contributing
Contact
- Professor Muthucumaru Maheswaran: maheswar (at) cs.mcgill.ca
- Trung Vuong Thien: trung.vuongthien (at) cs.mcgill.ca