RESTlabs: Service broker architecture for remote labs

This paper reports a work-in-progress at the Centre for Educational Innovation and Technology (CEIT) at The University of Queensland on the design and implementation of a new remote laboratory architecture utilizing contemporary and emerging web standards. The RESTlabs architecture maintains the concept of a Lab Server that manages a rig upon which to run experiments and a Service Broker to manage user access to a Lab Server. Much innovative design is taking place in the Lab Server and the UI associated with an experiment, and this requires new support architectures from the Service Broker. This paper discusses the design of a Service Broker as detailed in the MIT iLabs architecture and discusses the changes that have been incorporated in the RESTlabs architecture of the Service Broker.