A method, system and article of manufacture for simulating latency between software applications. There is provided a middleware component, e.g., a delay driver, within a multi-tier software product, the middleware component driver enables simulation of both latency and bandwidth restrictions experienced by the components in the multi-tier software product. The middleware component determines whether I/O request packets should be delayed, selects the number and types of I/O requests packets to be delayed and the amount of time to delay processing of the packets. Through the use of such a middleware component, a user is able to simulate various conditions experienced by the multi-tier software product.