A. MIMIC is particularly well suited for regression testing of network management applications. Here are some of the things being done with MIMIC:
With a constant simulation, you can predict the values of scalars as well as counters. Since counter simulations in MIMIC are rate based, you know that if an object has a rate of 10/sec, at time = 30 sec the value will be 300.
But, since time advances, it is normally impossible to guarantee that a query is responded to at a precise time. With MIMIC, you can use the Agent->Pause command to stop time for an agent. This way you can guarantee your values at any point in time you want.
You can use the Agent->Pause functionality further to simulate behaviour instantaneously at any time, whether 15 seconds, 15 minutes or 15 days after booting. This is useful to test counter value wraps.
To test service-level-management data collection over long periods of time, you can combine the pause functionality with mimicsh scripting to advance time at a rapid pace (at least 10 times faster). This way you can get months' worth of data collection done in days.
Since counter rates can be changed at any point during the simulation, you can create pathological scenarios at will. For example, you can change the traffic counters with a high rate to represent peak usage scenarios, or increase the rate of error counters to see how fast and reliably an alarming threshold is detected.