Network Simulation and Emulation: Best-in-Class Approaches for Dealing with Network Complexity

Developers typically write code on a LAN. The code they write, however, typically runs on a WAN. This simple disparity is the cause of countless problems for developers, network managers, and business users alike.

This white paper describes how WAN emulation helps developers overcome this disparity. It explains why the technology is indispensable for optimizing development in an increasingly networked world. And it enumerates the specific benefits being realized by companies that have already incorporated WAN emulation into their end-to end development and QA processes.

Developers can no longer simply test their code on a LAN (or even on an inaccurately simplistic model of the WAN) and still have a reasonable expectation that it will perform as required in the real world of latency and bandwidth contention. They must fully take into account the attributes of the actual infrastructure on which their applications will run from the very beginning of the development process. This document explains how they can do so, and the significant, tangible benefits that they will gain as a result.

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