Patent ID: 8762959

Claim:
A system of testing software, the system comprising: a first hardware system having one or more hardware components to execute a first version of the software; a second hardware system having one or more hardware components to execute a second version of the software, the first version of the software and the second version of the software being different versions of the software, the one or more hardware components of the first hardware system being non-overlapping with the one or more hardware components of the second hardware system, and the one or more hardware components of the first hardware system being essentially equal to the one or more hardware components of the second hardware system according to one or more hardware criteria; and a simulator including at least one processor and being coupled to the first hardware system and the second hardware system through a same network, the simulator comprising an agent to perform a parallel testing of the first hardware system and the second hardware system by providing first input data traffic to the first hardware system and second input data traffic to the second hardware system so that the parallel testing is performed while avoiding configuration changes in the first hardware system and the second hardware system, the first input data traffic and the second input data traffic each including a same type of data and a same amount of data, and the simulator accessing corresponding performance values from the first hardware system and the second hardware system to evaluate a performance comparison between the first hardware system executing the first version of the software and the second hardware system executing the second version of the software.