Systems companies today face increasingly complex and expensive testing challenges that require innovative solutions. One approach to address the problem uses full-system simulation with virtual hardware early on and throughout the development process. Recent technological advances in virtualization now satisfy the demands of software development, enabling the construction of a software model of the complete system that can run on the developer's desktop PC. Virtualization is so accurate it can run the fabled golden code - the actual binary that ships in the final product. A virtual test laboratory can simulate not only the system being tested but also the other systems it interacts with.