Abstract: The present invention is a system and a method of emulating large numbers of network elements to enable testing the operational abilities of NMS devices to scale. According to embodiments of the present invention multiple network elements are emulated by using a single network element while ensuring that all multiple network elements appear to the NMS devices as real network elements The disclosed solution is comprised of an appliance that connects a NMS device to one real network clement. The appliance presents the network element to the NMS device as thousands of network elements with thousands of IP addresses. Using a real network element enables the system to emulate real world SNMP set/get behaviors. The proposed solution enables monitoring the behavior of NMS devices in controlled circumstances and to test their behavior under different load conditions.