1. A method comprising: generating a virtual instance of a hardware device from device profile model data, wherein the virtual instance of the hardware device is to simulate operation of the hardware device, the operation of the hardware device comprises monitoring a physical entity, and the simulated operation comprises: interacting with a software service over a network connection, wherein the interaction comprises: generating, at the virtual instance, message data to push to a host of the software service over the network connection; receiving request data from the software service over the network connection; generating a simulated response to the request data; and sending the simulated response from the virtual instance to the host over the network connection; and modeling a physical effect of the physical entity measured by the hardware device, wherein data sent by the virtual instance during the interaction is based on the modeled physical effect.