The aim is to assess performance, predict the impact of change, or otherwise optimize technology decision-making.
These products are typically found in the Development and QA environments of Service Providers, Network Equipment Manufacturers, and Enterprises.
Software developers typically want to analyze the response time and sensitivity to packet loss of client-server applications and emulate specific network effects (of 5G, Smart homes, industrial IOT, military networks, etc.,) with different round-trip-times, throughputs, bit error rates, and packet drops.
The most popular network simulation software packages, OPNET and Tetcos NetSim, also have emulation modules for real-time device connectivity.
Simulation tools however model effects from different layers of the network stack when running in emulation mode.