Cloud Computing (CC) and virtualization concepts are two advanced technologies introduced to empower distance and blended learning. Besides, they play a crucial role in equipping learners with practical skills and fostering hands-on experience to defend against cyber-attacks. Many Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in developed countries have already embraced the promise of CC to raise educational standards. However, the pace of its adoption in developing countries has stagnated. Moreover, existing solutions in the literature are not sustainable. They either rely on on-premise infrastructure or are bound by a single cloud service provider. Consequently, they are likely prone to failures and a sudden outage. To fill this gap, this paper is a first that comprehensively addresses the above issues and introduces a federated hybrid CC system based on an extension of Apache Virtual Computing Lab (VCL). The proposed system provides an independent open-source implementation, greater configuration flexibility, and methodological improvements as compared to existing studies in the literature. In addition, it promotes the sustainability of the CC services, extensible cloud architecture, and fault tolerance. VCL is primarily focused on provisioning Virtual Laboratories (VL) for remote cybersecurity and computer networks education, with potential expansion to other domains of engineering education. In addition, this paper introduces GPT-TerminalPro, a terminal-based tool driven by OpenAI’s Generative Pretrained Transformer (GPT-3.5) that provides intelligent assistance to users while performing lab tasks. To experimentally evaluate the VCL’s performance, the standard Linux tools as well as the Apache benchmark and httperf HTTP load generators are utilized. VCL has been tested with 30 users and 61 virtual user computing environments provisioning to validate the overall performance. The results are fascinating: the provisioning time including all VCL background tasks is always less than a minute and utilizes fewer computing resources while providing a better user experience. This paper will encourage the adoption of CC in low-income countries.
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