Systems and methods for automated building of a simulated network environment

A system for automatically building a simulated network environment comprising:

• a computer configured to communicatively connect to a functioning network, the functioning network comprising one or more network devices;
• a module configured to create a device profile for each of the one or more network devices and a segment profile, each created device profile including configuration information about the network devices so as to define the installed and configured network device on the functioning network, the module further configured to create the segment profile utilizing one or more of the created device profiles, the segment profile being a group of one or more device profiles along with corresponding segment level metadata defining a relationship of the one or more device profiles of the segment profile, the module further configured to configure a simulated network substantially resembling the functioning network, based on the device profiles, such that during operation the simulated network operationally simulates operations performed by the functioning network for training users to use or operate the functioning network;
• and
• an interface configured to receive metadata regarding the one or more network devices and add the received metadata to the associated device profile and to receive segment metadata regarding the segment profile and add the segment metadata to the segment profile.

A system for automatically building a simulated network environment comprising:

• a computer device configured to communicatively connect to a functioning network, the functioning network comprising one or more network devices;
• a module configured to create one or more device profiles for the one or more network devices within the functioning network, the created device profiles including configuration information about the one or more network devices so as to define the installed and configured network devices, to create a segment profile utilizing one or more of the created device profiles, the segment profile being a group of one or more device profiles along with corresponding segment level metadata defining a relationship of the one or more device profiles of the segment profile, and to create a network environment profile as a group of created segment profiles and network environment metadata, including assignment of the segment profiles within a network environment hierarchy based on a dependency with other segments within the network environment profile, the module further configured to create a simulated network, based upon the one or more device profiles, the simulated network created to perform operations substantially similar to the functioning network and operating separately from the functioning network for training users to use or operate the functioning network;
• and
• an interface configured to receive metadata regarding the one or more network devices and add the received metadata to the associated device profile, to receive segment metadata regarding the segment profile and add the segment metadata to the segment profile, and to receive network environment profile metadata regarding the network environment and to add the network environment metadata to the network environment profile.