Methods, systems, and computer readable media for processing control plane messages for emulated data center switching fabric

A system for testing a network system under test (SUT), the system comprising:

• physical application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) switching resources;
• a switching environment emulator configured for emulating, using the physical ASIC switching resources, data center switching fabric comprising a plurality of data center fabric switching elements;
• a first control plane daemon implemented on at least one processor, wherein the first control plane daemon is configured for processing control plane messages for a first data center fabric switching element of the data center switching fabric emulated using the physical ASIC switching resources, and wherein the at least one processor is physically located remote from an emulated datacenter testbed device housing the physical ASIC switching resources;
• a first port for communicating at least a first control plane message for processing by the first control plane daemon;
• and
• a control plane relay daemon configured to relay the control plane messages from the emulated datacenter testbed device to the first control plane daemon, wherein the control plane relay daemon is configured to relay additional control plane messages from additional data center fabric switching elements of the data center switching fabric emulated using the physical ASIC switching resources to a pool of control plane daemons executed by the at least one processor remote from the emulated datacenter testbed.