Cisco Packet Tracer
Cisco Packet Tracer is a network simulation tool that covers the material in the various Cisco Certified Network Exams. It is often difficult to engage students with real networks of any scale, because assembling the hardware, etc. is quite difficult. Cisco Packet Tracer allows the instructor to simulate networks of hardware devices so students can configure and troubleshoot the networks. Students can log into virtual equivalents of routers, switches, and computers, type in commands into those virtual equivalents and have the devices then behave differently on the network.
Most recent versions of Cisco Packet Tracer come with simulations of IoT devices that can be combined into IoT networks. Featured devices include not only IoT devices fir the home like light bulbs, air conditioners and motion sensors, but also those associated with smart cities and power grids like turbines and pollution monitors.
Simulating IoT devices on Cisco Packet Tracer
The exercise here presents a tutorial for using Cisco Packet Tracer to simulate IoT networks. The exercise is oriented towards a home network, and so simulates IoT devices on an intranet rather than the Internet.
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"Realistic" Cisco Packet Tracer IoT Simulation. This exercise, which I developed, attempts to provide a "realistic" simulation of a home network.
Thus, it assumes the home network is running DHCP and WiFi. It
assumes the student is already familiar with how to use Cisco Packet Tracer
to configure a router port, set up DHCP and set up WPA2-PSK WiFi.
Simple Cisco Packet Tracer IoT Simulation. This tutorial developed by someone else provides a simpler introduction to using Cisco Packet Tracer to simulate a home IoT network. In this simulation, every device has to be manually assigned an IP address and devices are connected with Ethernet cables rather than through WiFi.
Cisco Packet Tracer Prerequisites. To fully understand
the realistic lab above, it is necessary to know how to configure a single router in Cisco
Packet Tracer, configure DHCP (automatically allocate IP addresses) in Cisco Packet Tracer
and set up WiFi in Cisco Packet Tracer. Labs corresponding to these prerequisites are found here.