This is an internal Cisco tool which is so useful – that I am really pleased that it is finally available for public consumption.

VIRL Stands for Virtual Internet Routing Lab

What Is VIRL?

VIRL is comprehensive network design and simulation platform. VIRL includes a powerful graphical user interface for network design and simulation control, a configuration engine that can build complete Cisco configuration at the push of a button, Cisco virtual machines running same network operating systems as used in Cisco’s physical routers and switches, all running on top of OpenStack.

How Does VIRL Work?

VIRL uses the Linux KVM hypervisor and OpenStack as its virtual machine control layer, with a powerful API enabling the creation and operation of VMs in a simulated network topology. Users design their network using the VM Maestro design and control interface, with network elements such as virtual routers, switches and servers. The design is translated into a set of virtual machines running real Cisco network operating systems.

What Does VIRL Offer?

Design, learn and test with virtual machine running real Cisco network operating systems – IOS, IOS XE, IOS XR  and NX-OS as well as virtual machine running 3rd party operating systems. Build highly-accurate models of real-world or future networks, study the behaviour and configuration of routing protocols, break and fix your network and understand how to troubleshoot with a powerful integrated platform.

The original information can be found here

Cisco VIRL Personal Edition annual subscription license provides a scalable, extensible network design and simulation environment for several Cisco Network Operating Systems for students. This includes IOSv, IOS XRv, NX-OSv, CSR1000v as well as third party images such as Ubuntu Linux.

Educational pricing is available for this product for college students, parents buying for a college student, or teachers, homeschool teachers and staff of all grade levels – limited to one purchase.

VIRL enables users to:

• Build highly-accurate models of real-world or future networks.

• Learn and test with ‘real’ versions of Cisco network operating systems – IOSv, IOS XRv, NX-OSv and CSR1000v.

• Integrate virtual network simulations with real network environments.

• The download includes VIRL Personal Edition 1.0 Pre-Release software with a single-user annual license to manage up to 15 Cisco nodes.

You can view a short demo of the product in the link below.