OVERVIEW
MIMIC Cable Modem Simulator, is the industry's first integrated simulation tool supporting DOCSIS, allows cable modem developers and cable companies to perform real world, integrated cable and internetworking device simulations. MIMIC allows suppliers of cable modems to design, develop and test their products in a virtual and scalable network environment, assuring customers that their cable modems will work properly when deployed across heterogeneous environments. Cable providers can use MIMIC to simulate the 1000s of households that use cable modems to assure the scalability of cable management software. In addition, providers can also use MIMIC for large-scale Operations Support System (OSS) testing deployments in place of large banks of cable modems, which would be cost prohibitive.
From an OSS standpoint, the MIMIC Cable Modem Simulator is designed to simulate cable modem installations that are DOCSIS (Data-over-Cable Service Interface Specification) compliant and optionally support PacketCable specifications from CableLabs.
Components:
MIMIC simulates the following components to approximate a cable modem end device:
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SNMP agent: MIMIC completely simulates SNMP v1, v2, v2c, v3.
Cable modem units are required to support version 1 and 3 of this widely popular network management protocol. SNMP performs a variety of functions, such as usage and performance monitoring, billing, fault detection and analysis, etc. -
DHCP client: MIMIC simulates a scalable DHCP client.
Cable modems are required to obtain dynamically their IP Address from the service-provider's OSS. MIMIC can also act as a DHCP relay. - DHCP relay: MIMIC can also act as a DHCP relay along with being a DHCP client.
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TFTP client: MIMIC simulates a scalable TFTP client.
Cable modems are required to download dynamically their configuration information from the service-provider's OSS center. -
ToD client: MIMIC simulates a scalable Time of Day client.
Cable modems are required to get the current time of day from the service-provider's OSS center.