Abstract: To closely simulate the experience of an end user, a software agent executes where the end user would be situated and attempts to exercise a computer resource such as a networked application or a network resource in a simulated transaction in exactly or nearly exactly the same way that the computer resource would be exercised by the end user in non-simulated transaction. The results of the simulated transaction and of other simulated transactions by other software agents are communicated to a central software system for recordation and analysis.