1. A computer-implemented method for generating a test bed for developing, testing and/or supporting the use of software, comprising: receiving a manifest that refers to a type space model of a computer network, the type space model including hardware, software, network and storage entity types, the manifest including an encoding that conveys parameters that can be used to inflate the type space model of the computer network into an instance space model of the computer network; processing the manifest to create an instance space model of the computer network, creating the instance space model comprising creating multiple instances of each entity type included in the type space model; and storing data representative of the instance space model to a physical storage medium.