Network Research Lab
Vibe labbing for research — describe the experiment in plain English, agent builds a multi-vendor lab, iterate conversationally, SSH in to verify. AI builds real multi-vendor CLI labs in minutes so you can reproduce any network bug, test any protocol, and validate any research idea — without hardware.
Describe any network condition in plain English. NetPilot spins up a working multi-vendor lab with Cisco, Juniper, Arista, Nokia, Palo Alto, Fortinet, and FRR device CLIs — in the cloud, in under two minutes.
See It in Action
Watch NetPilot build a complete multi-vendor lab from a single plain-English description.
One lab, six capabilities — cloud + AI + multi-vendor + real CLIs + failure injection + validation
Keysight IxNetwork and VIAVI TestCenter require six-figure hardware. GNS3, EVE-NG, and ContainerLab require DIY setup. Vendor sandboxes cover one vendor. NetPilot combines AI-native topology design, multi-vendor real CLIs, cloud hosting, failure injection, and validation orchestration in one product — as of 2026, the productized combination of all six for research workloads.
AI-native
Prompt → topology → vendor-specific config → deployed lab, all automatic. No manual topology builder, no YAML.
Multi-vendor
Cisco IOL, Juniper cRPD, Arista cEOS, Nokia SR Linux, Palo Alto PAN-OS, Fortinet FortiGate, FRR, Linux — all in one lab.
Real device CLIs
Actual vendor NOSes running as containers. Not simulation. SSH in and run show route, debug bgp, commit — all real.
Cloud-native
Managed cloud VM per user. No Docker, no VMs, no image sourcing. Zero setup on your end.
Validation orchestration
Connectivity, protocol adjacencies, routing tables, traffic generation — checked automatically without typing a command.
Failure injection
Packet loss, link flaps, latency, jitter, malformed packets via Linux endpoint with Scapy and tc/netem.
Built for every network research team
From hyperscaler fabric R&D to defense research labs — one platform, five segments.
Hyperscalers & cloud operators
SONiC development. Fabric scale testing. Multi-vendor interop.
Testing a SONiC integration against Cisco NX-OS and Arista EOS in the same fabric — without racking gear.
Learn moreCarriers & ISPs
Cross-vendor interop bugs. Outage forensics. Migration validation.
An EOL Cisco router sent a malformed EVPN packet that crashed a Juniper vMX. Reproduce in 10 minutes, not 6 weeks.
Learn moreNetwork equipment R&D
Pre-release regression. TAC case reproduction. Competitive benchmarking.
A customer-reported Juniper–Arista interop bug. Stood up the exact topology with real vendor images in 2 minutes.
Learn moreDefense & government research
MANETs. Tactical radio modeling. Protocol research under adversarial conditions.
Comparing routing protocol behavior across multi-vendor stacks under packet loss and wireless impairment — no physical radios needed.
Learn moreUniversities & research labs
Paper reproducibility. Protocol experiments. Thesis labs.
Reproducing a published BGP convergence experiment in minutes. Same topology, same vendors, deterministic results.
Learn moreOpen networking & FRR teams
FRR protocol labs. SONiC interop. Babel mesh and SRv6 experiments.
Testing FRR Babel vs OSPF convergence in a 12-node mesh topology — deployed from one prompt, no containerlab install needed.
Learn moreHyperscalers & cloud operators
Build and validate data-center fabrics at scale. Experiment with SONiC, open NOS development, and multi-vendor interop — without racking physical gear.
- SONiC development and integration against vendor NOSes (Cisco, Arista, Nokia) in the same fabric — enterprise plan adds native SONiC support
- Fabric scale testing: leaf-spine, CLOS, large EVPN-VXLAN deployments
- P4 pipeline testing, custom forwarding behaviors, and programmable data planes
- Multi-vendor fabric validation before rolling new gear into production
Carriers & ISPs
Reproduce cross-vendor bugs, run outage forensics, and validate migrations without waiting for spare gear. The Tier-1 carrier-style EVPN interop bug — in 10 minutes, not 6 weeks.
- Cross-vendor bug reproduction: EOL Cisco device → malformed EVPN packet → Juniper vMX crash
- Outage forensics with Linux endpoint + Scapy for malformed packet generation
- Pre-purchase vendor validation: test Cisco vs Juniper vs Arista in your topology before you buy
- Protocol research: EVPN, SR-MPLS, BGP-LU, segment routing, RFC conformance
Network equipment R&D
Pre-release regression, TAC case reproduction, and competitive benchmarking — without waiting on a physical lab queue. Real vendor NOSes, real bugs, real fixes.
- TAC case reproduction: stand up customer topologies in minutes, iterate on fixes in hours
- Cross-vendor interop validation — Cisco + Juniper + Arista + Nokia in one lab
- Pre-release firmware regression testing on real device CLIs
- Competitive benchmarks against peer vendors in identical topologies
Defense & government research
MANETs, tactical radio modeling, and protocol research under adversarial conditions — reproducible and cloud-native.
- MANET and mesh network research: resilient topologies, failure-tolerant design, partition behavior
- Multi-vendor routing protocol comparison: OSPF, IS-IS, BGP, Babel, EIGRP, RIP across FRR and commercial stacks
- Wireless and link impairment modeling: packet loss, latency, jitter, reordering, RF fading effects
- Convergence and scale experiments under adversarial conditions
- Reproducible experiments for program milestones, published papers, and FFRDC research
Universities & research labs
Reproducible multi-vendor network experiments for protocol research, thesis labs, and paper-quality work. Deterministic topologies, golden-image validation, cloud-hosted.
- Paper reproducibility: golden images and deterministic deployments mean reviewers can rerun your experiments
- Protocol experiments: BGP convergence, EVPN interop, SR research, novel routing protocols
- Thesis labs and PhD work — cite the exact vendor images and NetPilot configuration
- Teaching labs at the research level — hands-on multi-vendor work for graduate courses
Open networking & FRR teams
FRRouting is the routing stack inside SONiC, the BGP daemon in Cumulus and DENT, and the protocol engine for MANET and mesh research. Build any FRR lab — BGP, OSPF, IS-IS, Babel, EVPN, SRv6, SR-MPLS — from a plain-English prompt without installing netlab, Docker, or containerlab.
- FRR BGP labs: full RFC-compliant BGP with route policies, communities, route reflectors, and multi-path — same as SONiC's BGP plane
- FRR EVPN/VXLAN: open-source EVPN control plane for leaf-spine fabrics — validate behavior before deploying to SONiC or Cumulus production
- FRR Babel: purpose-built for lossy mesh networks (MANET, community mesh, tactical wireless) — compare Babel vs OSPF vs IS-IS on the same topology
- FRR SRv6 and SR-MPLS: test the same SRv6 uSID features hyperscalers use for AI cluster fabrics and carrier next-gen transport
- Multi-vendor interop: run FRR alongside Cisco IOL, Arista cEOS, Nokia SR Linux, Juniper cRPD in the same lab for cross-implementation validation
Every vendor. Every failure mode. Every research type.
Broad coverage out of the box. Fully customizable on the enterprise plan — including SONiC, user-provided vendor images, and custom NOS integrations.
Vendors
- Cisco IOL (router + switch)
- Juniper cRPD
- Arista cEOS
- Nokia SR Linux
- Palo Alto PAN-OS
- Fortinet FortiGate
- FRR (BGP, OSPF, IS-IS, Babel, EVPN, SRv6, SR-MPLS, PIM)
- Linux endpoint (Scapy, iperf3, tc/netem)
+ Enterprise plan: SONiC, BYOI, custom NOS integrations. Built on ContainerLab — any container-compatible image works.
Failure types
- Link flap
- Packet loss (random, correlated, burst)
- Latency
- Jitter
- Bandwidth constraint
- Link duplication
- Malformed packets
- Out-of-order delivery
- RF fading / multipath effects (wireless research)
- BGP session reset
- MTU mismatch
Research types
- Protocol interop
- Cross-vendor bug reproduction
- RFC conformance
- Scale / convergence testing
- Security / adversarial testing
- Firmware upgrade validation
- Pre-purchase vendor evaluation
- Academic paper reproducibility
- Tactical / MANET research
- SONiC / open NOS development
Research playbooks
Tutorials, comparisons, and case studies for the research workflows this lab supports.
Keysight vs Spirent vs NetPilot: Research Lab Comparison 2026
Honest comparison of 9 platforms for network research — from six-figure hardware testers to AI-built cloud labs.
Read guide Case StudyReproduce a Cross-Vendor EVPN Bug in 10 Minutes
A Tier-1 ISP post-mortem compressed from 6 weeks to 10 minutes using AI-built labs and Scapy.
Read guide GuideAI-Powered MANET Research Labs
Reproducible mesh network experiments in the cloud — for defense, academic, and community mesh research teams.
Read guide TutorialDebugging Cisco-Juniper EVPN Interop Issues
The three most common cross-vendor EVPN bugs (RT mismatch, Type-2 non-import, Proxy-ARP) with reproducible labs for each.
Read guide ComparisonBest Network Research Lab Platforms in 2026
Tier-ranked honest comparison of 10 platforms — NetPilot, Keysight IxNetwork, VIAVI TestCenter, Aviz, ContainerLab, ns-3, and more. Six-row segment routing guide.
Read guide TutorialFRRouting Cloud Labs: BGP, OSPF, IS-IS, Babel, EVPN, SRv6
FRR powers SONiC fabrics, AI cluster networking, and MANET research. Build any FRR lab from a plain-English prompt — no netlab, no Docker.
Read guideFrom research idea to validated experiment in four steps
Plain English in, working multi-vendor lab out.
Describe the lab in plain English
“3-node eBGP lab with Cisco IOL (AS 65001), Juniper cRPD (AS 65002), and Arista cEOS (AS 65003). Advertise 10.0.0.0/24 from all three. Add a Linux endpoint that can inject malformed BGP UPDATE packets.”
NetPilot designs + configures the topology
Vendor-specific configs generated automatically — Cisco IOS syntax, Junos groups, Arista EOS. Topology wired. No manual config writing.
Deploy to cloud in ~2 minutes
ContainerLab runs on a managed cloud VM with golden-image validation on every release. Vendor images always tested.
Experiment, inject, validate
SSH into any device. Run show route, debug, commit. Inject packet loss from the Linux endpoint. NetPilot validates protocol adjacencies, reachability, and route tables — no manual checks.
Network research labs compared
NetPilot combines AI-native topology design, multi-vendor real-CLI labs, cloud deployment, failure injection, and validation orchestration. As of 2026, no other platform bundles all five for research labs.
| Keysight IxNetwork | VIAVI TestCenter | GNS3 | EVE-NG | ContainerLab | Cisco CML | NetPilot | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI-native (prompt → lab) | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Multi-vendor (8+ OSes) | ✅ | ✅ | ⚠️ BYOI | ⚠️ BYOI | ⚠️ BYOI | ❌ Cisco only | ✅ |
| Real device CLIs | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Cloud self-serve | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ⚠️ Limited | ✅ |
| Built-in failure injection | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ⚠️ tc/netem | ❌ | ✅ |
| Validation orchestration | ⚠️ | ⚠️ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Setup time | Weeks | Weeks | Days | Days | Hours | Hours | Minutes |
| Deployment model | Hardware appliances | Hardware appliances | Self-hosted | Self-hosted | Self-hosted | Self-hosted / limited cloud | Cloud SaaS, enterprise tier |
Keysight IxNetwork and VIAVI TestCenter require six-figure hardware investments. GNS3, EVE-NG, and ContainerLab require DIY setup on self-hosted infrastructure. Vendor sandboxes are single-vendor. NetPilot covers the gap with a cloud-native enterprise platform.
Frequently asked questions
Common questions from enterprise network research teams evaluating NetPilot.
Explore more
Adjacent products
Example prompts
Bring your next network research idea to NetPilot
Describe any network. Any vendor mix. Any failure condition. Any protocol. NetPilot builds it in the cloud — real device CLIs, validated, in under 2 minutes.
Enterprise plans include dedicated environments, custom vendor support, workflow integration, and SSO/audit. Talk to us about your research program.