The Internet of Digital Twins: Advances in Hyperscaling Virtual Labs with Hypervisor- and Container-Based Virtualization

Abstract

Cloud computing enables the provision of virtual personal computers (PCs), known as virtual machines (VMs), using virtualization. VMs with specific applications can thus provide a generic usage concept for virtual PCs. As stated in [1] the concept of digital twins is based on the idea that a digital informational construct about a physical system could be created as an entity of its own. The combination of both concepts leads to the definition of virtual labs using digital twins for engineering education, which was defined in [2] as follows: “The merger of a digital twin (the test rig model) with a virtual PLC (the control system) as part of a virtualized PC accessible through a VPN network connection are the components that merge into the virtual lab environment.” Based on earlier works, this paper presents some advances in developing the IT concept for massively scaling up virtual lab environments using public cloud service providers and describes some major virtualization concepts.