Cloud based laboratory for distance education

Today's dynamic life has changed the traditional teaching from the classroom and laboratory based classical learning to an approach using online and distance e-Learning. Universities usually follow this trend and enable their resources as online utilities for the students. There are several ways to offer these facilities online and cloud is the most promising one when analyzing several criteria. The cloud technology provides many benefits reducing the overall cost and improving the business continuity. In this paper we present an idea how to transfer the traditional computer laboratory into a cloud based utility using open source cloud frameworks. This transformation creates a dynamic, flexible, elastic, reliable and modern laboratory that can serve the students as a tool for distance learning for many courses simultaneously. It acts on a “Lab as a Service” principle.