Developing P4-Based Applications on Academic Cloud Platforms for Smart Grid Security, Resilience, and Workforce Development

Securing the smart grid demands bridging the gaps between power systems and cybersecurity. In this work, we present an enhanced virtual platform built on Academic Cloud to support smart grid security, resilience, and workforce development. The platform enables exploration and training with emerging networking technologies, specifically, P4 data plane programmability, prior to real-world deployment. We developed a new set of interactive training modules focused on P4-based security applications for smart grid protection. To support these modules, we built a customizable virtual environment that enhances accessibility and user engagement, and we redesigned the configuration interface to improve usability and support hardware switch integration. Finally, we present two case studies, missing PMU data recovery and DNP3 length overflow attack detection, that provide users with hands-on experience in developing P4 pipeline logic.