Patent ID: 8214193

Claim:
A method of testing policy changes associated with a production network comprising: generating a virtual network representing at least a portion of the production network; obtaining a first transaction log based on a first execution of the virtual network using test traffic and a first set of policies that are implemented in the production network; obtaining a second transaction log based on a second execution of the virtual network using the test traffic and a second set of policies to be implemented in the production network, the second set of policies being associated with an access restriction policy or a traffic regulation policy, the second set of policies including a policy that blocks traffic from a predetermined source IP address, traffic to a predetermined destination IP address, traffic associated with a particular transmission protocol, or peer-to-peer (P2P) communication traffic; and determining an effect that the second set of policies has on the virtual network based on a comparison of the first and second transaction logs, the first and second sets of policies comprising a security policy.