Presentation: 2025 ND EPSCoR Annual conference 

October 21, 2025, NDSU Memorial Union, Fargo, North Dakota

EVPN-VXLAN Made Teachable: Datacenter Networking Labs for Early Undergraduates

This poster outlines a vendor-neutral teaching kit to make modern datacenter fabrics approachable for early undergraduates—timely as North Dakota adds large-scale AI datacenters (e.g., CoreWeave capacity within Applied Digital sites at Ellendale and Harwood) and grows related workforce needs. The kit uses free emulation on campus PCs and focuses on a minimal, comprehensible subset: underlay vs. overlay basics; VXLAN for the overlay; BGP EVPN as the control plane; and essential operations topics (visibility, failure domains, simple ECMP paths). Labs would run with Linux containers and an open routing stack (e.g., FRRouting) via lightweight tools (e.g., containerlab or GNS3), avoiding specialized hardware. Rather than a finished curriculum, I will share a starter design (QR-linked): repo layout, two lab outlines, sample configs, and verification commands—plus a small collaboration menu for ND partners to co-develop ready-to-run materials after the conference. Targeted contributions include (1) a basic observability add-on, (2) a simple failure-injection exercise, and (3) a short context pack on cooling/power in AI halls. The goal, aligned with K-20 STEM education and workforce development, is practical: lower the barrier to teaching modern datacenter networking at teaching-focused institutions, ensure reproducibility, and create clear on-ramps for students into ND’s expanding AI/datacenter ecosystem.