Networking, communications and computing research employ state-of-the-art infrastructure and facilities to develop and test next generation Internet applications including electronic education and electronic health. With this focus, the Internetworking Program at Dalhousie University has established an Advanced Internetworking Laboratory (AIL) research and development space in Atlantic Canada. The major aim of the AIL is to provide a comprehensive platform for collaborative academic-industry research into networking applications development. This paper identifies the key design metrics used in establishing the research laboratory infrastructure. In particular, the architecture of our research centric test bed is presented considering design objectives of all three stakeholders in this project: academics, industry and technology providers.