From: Barry Bocaner (barry@bocaner.net)
Date: Thu Aug 07 2003 - 19:20:11 GMT-3
On Wed, 6 Aug 2003, Tony Schaffran wrote:
> A SIM will never give you the full functionality of the real thing. Do you
> have any idea how much programming it would take to simulate the logic of
> just one router, let alone a complete lab? I do not know myself, but it
All the programming to simulate the logic of ANY router/switch/whatever
has already been done. It's the IOS software itself. All you'd need to
add would be a software emulator like the virtual PC software macintosh
users use or VMware to simulate the router hardware plus a simulation of
an ISDN network, ethernet, t1. Add a few virtual modules that would
generate traffic or do sniffing and you'd have a really cool product.
I've seen windows guys running 5 virtual windows 2000 servers all
virtually networked together in different VMware windows on a single linux
machine in order to simulate all sorts of windows networks, so there is no
crippling technical reason it couldn't be done. Whether or not cisco would
ever give anyone the information on how their hardware works is another
matter.
Have you seen the music software called reason?
http://www.propellerheads.se/products/reason/
Really cool. You can build your own virtual rack of an almost
unlimited number of electronic instruments and effects. Hit a key and you
are looking at the back and can drag and drop cables to connect them in
any way you want. Check out the demo -- it is REALLY neat.
Imagine how powerful it would be if you could drag and drop virtual
routers, Ethernet switches, WAN and optical equipment, etc. onto a virtual
rack -- load each device up with the very same IOS image you are using in
production (or a new one you want to try out) and build as big a network
as you can dream up. Use virtual test equipment (protocol analyzers,
sniffers, traffic gens, even servers and workstations etc.) in conjunction
with your virtual network.
Training would be the least of it's uses... It'd be great for validating
and demoing network designs, safely trying out propsed changes to a
production network, evaluating new IOS releases.
-- --=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Barry J. Bocaner barry@bocaner.net http://web.bocaner.net -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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