Patent ID: 7342897

Claim:
A network verification tool (NVT) apparatus, comprising: a network under test; a plurality of probe network devices coupled to the network under test, each one probe network device configured to host at least one associated task type; and an NVT server coupled to the plurality of probe network devices, wherein the NVT server is configured to translate parameters for a plurality of tasks entered by a user to instructions executable by the plurality of probe network devices, wherein each task of the plurality of tasks has a corresponding task type, a first task subset of the plurality of tasks comprises parameters for tasks to configure the network under test to emulate a network having a greater number of network devices than the number of network devices comprising the network under test, a second task subset of the plurality of tasks comprises parameters for tasks to configure corresponding probe network devices to analyze conditions of the emulated network, and a profile comprises the first and second task subsets, the NVT server is configured to transmit the profile to the network under test by further being configured to transmit the instructions to each probe network device hosting the associated task type, and each probe network device is configured to execute a process corresponding to the at least one associated task type in response to the instructions.