- Pre-requisite Knowledge
- 3-Step Adoption Workflow Overview
- 1) Use Case Definition
- 2) Architecture
- l. Agent installation/definition
- ll. Test Configuration
- 3) Operationalization
- Additional Resources
In today’s digital world, maintaining seamless application performance and ensuring exceptional user experiences are top priorities for every aspect of digital experience delivery. ThousandEyes, Cisco’s leading assurance solution, empowers organizations to monitor, diagnose, and optimize digital ecosystems with unparalleled precision.
This blog outlines a simple three-step adoption workflow for ThousandEyes which we’ll review in detail: defining your use cases, architecting the platform, and operationalizing it for ongoing success. Whether you're using Cloud, Enterprise, or Endpoint Agents, this guide provides an approach focused on general implementation and easy-to-follow steps.
Pre-requisite Knowledge
Before diving into implementation, it’s helpful to have a basic understanding of the following ThousandEyes concepts:
• Agents: Cloud, Enterprise & Endpoint
• Tests
• Alerts
• Dashboards
• API
3-Step Adoption Workflow Overview
Let’s walk through the 3-step adoption workflow. Each step builds on the last and outlines how to effectively implement ThousandEyes in your environment. While the steps are presented in sequence, the process can be iterative—allowing you to revisit and refine each phase as needed:
Image 1. Workflow Overview
• Use Case Definition: Determine how to best align ThousandEyes with your specific business needs.
• Architecture: Design and configure your ThousandEyes environment in line with your use case(s).
• Operationalization: Turn insights into action through alerts, dashboards, integrations and API. This is where the magic happens!
Each phase of the implementation journey is outlined below in detail:
1) Use Case Definition
To ensure a successful ThousandEyes implementation, it’s crucial to begin with an understanding of your current monitoring state, any existing gaps in that visibility, and understand how those gaps impact your business. Identifying the specific challenges your organization faces and translating those into clear use cases is what will deliver meaningful results.
By identifying these pain points before implementation, we can align ThousandEyes to deliver the most value with the least amount of headache.
Image 2. ThousandEyes Use Cases Examples
When uncovering pain points and defining your use cases, consider factors such as:
• Which critical applications or platforms are vital to your operations? Whether on-premises or SaaS (like Microsoft 365, Salesforce, or Zoom), identifying your ‘must see’ applications gives you a roadmap for the next steps.
• How much visibility will you really need, and where? Think about whether outages or connectivity issues impact your various office locations, which cloud environments (such as AWS, Azure, or GCP) need continuous monitoring and visibility, etc.
2) Architecture
Once you’ve defined your use cases, the next step is to design and configure your ThousandEyes environment to align with the roadmap of priorities you identified. This step ensures the platform is set up to capture the right data from the right places, providing meaningful visibility across your digital ecosystem.
Whether you're monitoring SaaS applications, internal networks, or remote workforce experiences, the architecture phase is your ThousandEyes plan of success, and should cover the following areas: agent installation/definition, test configuration, and data visualization.
l. Agent installation/definition
Select (and deploy if necessary) the proper ThousandEyes agents:
• Cloud Agents: Ideal for external-facing apps or public network monitoring. Monitor popular SaaS services and simulate user experience from over 250+ global locations. No deployment necessary.
• Enterprise Agents: Best for internal app visibility and local network path tracking. Deploy within your data centers, branch offices, or cloud environments (OVA, Docker, AWS, GCP, etc). Requires deployment.
• Endpoint Agents: Especially helpful for remote or hybrid workforces. Installed on employee devices to monitor user experience and app behavior. Requires deployment.
ll. Test Configuration
Define key aspects of what you’ll be monitoring based upon your use cases and the agents from the Agent installation/definition phase:
• Target Type: Depending on your use case—whether you're monitoring an application or service—you can target a URL, FQDN, IP address, or even an *agent. Essentially, anything that is reachable either internally, externally, or both can be used as a test target!
*This is not applicable for Endpoint agents, only for the following Cloud & Enterprise Agent tests: • Agent-to-Agent • Voice - RTP |
• Agent Selection: Think carefully about where your tests originate—whether from branch offices, cloud regions, or remote employees. Choose the number of agents needed to accurately represent the diversity of real user traffic across your environment.
• Frequency & Timeout: Set test interval based on criticality—more frequent for essential apps, the lower the interval time (1,2 & 5 mins recommended).
More details on ThousandEyes test setup can be found here:• Cloud & Enterprise Agents - ThousandEyes Test Settings • Endpoint Agents - Endpoint Agent Test Settings |
Once your tests are running, dive into the data to uncover insights and ensure your digital services are performing as expected:
• Check for Errors: Review test timeline and path visualization to ensure there are no errors, as these may indicate routing problems, connectivity drops, or service disruptions.
• Validate End-to-End Visibility: Use the Path Visualization to confirm a complete view of the network path. Missing hops or partial routes can signal blind spots that may impact your ability to troubleshoot effectively, so make sure you take a look.
Additional information on ThousandEyes data visualization here:• Cloud and Enterprise Agents – Viewing Data • Path Visualization – Understanding Path Visualization • Endpoint Agents – Viewing Data |
3) Operationalization
So, you’ve deployed ThousandEyes use cases, set up and architected the platform, and are now collecting valuable data and metrics — great! But now comes a critical step: integrating ThousandEyes into your daily operations. Here are a few key focus areas to help you operationalize your platform:
• Alerts: Once your tests are running, it's critical to ensure your team is notified when things go wrong. Here’s how to get the most out of alerting:
◦ Set up alert notifications to all of your tests!
◦ Make sure alert rules have at least an email receipt; Review and manage all your Alert Notification Settings in one place to ensure the right teams are looped in based on test types and severity.
◦ Use Adaptive Alerting to automatically adjust alert rule thresholds based on observed behavior;
◦ Implement Dynamic Baselines to compare current performance against historical trends/fluctuations.
◦ You can receive alert notifications through custom webhooks, or custom-built integrations – including integrations with sites such as PagerDuty, Slack, ServiceNow and AppDynamics!
• Dashboards: ThousandEyes dashboards are a powerful way to transform data/metrics into actionable insights tailored to your team’s needs:
◦ Quickly build a view for the most common use cases with dashboard templates, allowing you to get up to speed with SaaS performance, endpoint monitoring, or network availability.
◦ No clones needed! Use dashboard filters to dynamically narrow down data by test groups, time ranges, agents, and more, without the need to spin up a unique dashboard.
◦ Save time and investigate issues faster with drill-down troubleshooting capabilities. Click directly into a widget for a detailed test view!
◦ Keep all your teams aligned with minimal fuss by creating snapshots:
Image 5. Creating a Dashboard Snapshot
• Automation and Efficiency: Manual tasks slow you down. ThousandEyes can automate and streamline your operations by:
◦ Leveraging the ThousandEyes API to automate report scheduling, data exports, or custom workflows triggered by alerts.
◦ Integrating with Cisco and 3rd party platforms to align ThousandEyes insights with your existing incident management processes.
Don’t let your ThousandEyes implementation be a hassle. By taking the time to think through your current state (Use Case Definition), desired state (Architecture), and the efficiencies along the way (Operationalization) you can lay the groundwork for a successful adoption and maximize the value of digital experience monitoring from the start!
Additional Resources
To support you throughout your ThousandEyes journey, here are some valuable resources to guide, educate, and accelerate your adoption:
• Getting Started with ThousandEyes
• ThousandEyes Resource Library
• ThousandEyes Community
•"Cisco ThousandEyes Essentials" - Free Cisco U Course
Ready to see ThousandEyes in action? Get your free 15-day trial here and get actionable insights into your critical customer and employee-facing applications and services.