The idea is to use configuration management capabilities (script management and configuration comparison) to organize test cases and apply them to the topology under test then see the reaction of the network to each test case.
A test case contains the configuration scripts to be applied to a group of devices.
As soon as test case is run (scripts are loaded to the appropriate devices), network state is collected: device CPU, memory, interface BW... using Engineering toolset module and for example, SLA values using VoIP & NQM module.
The result is a network state for each test case, this way we can compare the effect of configurations on the network and decide which one to apply to the production network.
Of course, we have the possibility to get back to a base configuration (initial configuration of network devices).
AJ
#test_cases #topology_under_test
