Patent ID: 8874776

Claim:
A testbed that transforms a formal specification of a structured management information into a software system that allows retrieval and modification of management information from a running network model comprising: virtual machines installed on physical hosts; packet routers to transfer packets generated by an application running on a network to a simulator; shadow nodes for receiving transferred packets and further transferring the packets into simulated packets, management agents that communicate with network management tools by a standard network management protocol; software function prototypes for the management instrumentation of the network model; and means for connecting the management agents with the software function comprising virtual machines and a network simulator; wherein the simulated packets are transformed into real packets and are transferred to a destination virtual machine and its corresponding application; and wherein the testbed includes a split stack comprising an upper half stack and a lower half stack and the upper half stack is implemented in the virtual machine and the lower half stack is implemented in the network simulator.