First 50 customer stories

[Chris345]

My Name is Chris and I work for a Private Bank. We use ThousandEyes to check web applications and to test data paths. I didn't setup the main Server monitors, but have setup the Cisco 9300 Switch Agents. My first post was erased when I somehow clicked on a link that took me away from this page, so It's probably not as good the second time around.

It took a couple hours to check out the Cisco 9300 code and to mock up a test. I installed it on my first switch and got a template built for the next ones. It would take much less time deploying from DNAC, but we are blocking some feature that would enable DNAC to deploy that.

We want to see the data path and between our remote sites with DIA internet to our DC's and the status of our web applications for monitoring.

I like how easy it is to implement ThousandEyes on the 9300 switches, but I do think the platform isn't as intuitive to me as other Cisco products. It's pretty in depth, which is awesome and can do many tests inside or outside of the network.

I definitely want to deploy it to all my remote sites to monitor the WAN for those slowness and internet down ticket. I'd even love to get deployments for remote workers too, but we don't have a direct budget for that.

I'm happy to answer any questions if you have any. Thanks Team!

[john74355]

Hi Chris, what method are you using to deploy the enterprise agent software if not using DNAC? We are currently exploring the Docker-based and wonder if you had any other challenges with your deployment method?

[Chris345]

Hey John! Yea I used docker as well and I just built a CLI Script to run the iox docker instance to run on the switches to get them to point back to our ThousandEyes account. Also for DNAC the two errors that were coming up on the Readiness Check were related to the HTTPS not being enabled on the switch, since it looks like DNAC uses that to verify the configuration. I want to see if we can enable that to see how easy it is to deploy with DNAC someday, but until then CLI it is.

The only error I have ran in to and I just have to chat with ThousandEyes support is this after deploying it: I can reach our DNS servers, so I'm not really sure what the issue is.

%IM-5-IOX_INST_NOTICE: Switch 1 R0/0: ioxman: IOX SERVICE thousandeyes_enterprise_agent LOG: Error calling createAgent: Curl error - Couldn't resolve host name

Here is the script that I built after reading through the docker container guild: https://docs.thousandeyes.com/product-documentation/global-vantage-points/enterprise-agents/installing/cisco-devices/installing-enterprise-agents-on-cisco-switches-with-docker

app-hosting appid thousandeyes_enterprise_agent
app-vnic AppGigabitEthernet trunk
vlan # guest-interface 0
guest-ipaddress ###.###.###.### netmask ###.###.###.###
app-default-gateway ###.###.###.### guest-interface 0
app-resource docker
prepend-pkg-opts
run-opts 1 "-e TEAGENT_ACCOUNT_TOKEN=*** INSERT TOKEN HERE ***"
run-opts 2 "#SWITCH NAME# Cisco-Docker"
name-server0 8.8.8.8
name-server1 8.8.4.4

app-hosting appid thousandeyes_enterprise_agent
app-vnic AppGigabitEthernet trunk
vlan # guest-interface 0
guest-ipaddress ###.###.###.### netmask ###.###.###.###
app-default-gateway ###.###.###.### guest-interface 0

[john74355]

Thanks for sharing more info! Based on your comment, it seems like you/your team manage both ThousandEyes and the Cisco hardware - is that correct? I have the predicament where my team manages ThousandEyes, but a separate team manages the Cisco hardware, so there is significant back and forth between the two teams to make sure everyone is happy. Probably the most significant concern is that the agents auto-update from ThousandEyes' public repo, and auto-update means no change control. Did any of your stakeholders raise concerns about that? We are actively exploring setting up our own mirror, but it just adds more overhead that we'd like to avoid.

[Chris345]

Hey John, now that's quite a predicament. I will say our team does manage the Switches and ThousandEyes on those switches. However our server team, and customer experience team for the Bank have a vested interest in the health of ThousandEyes as they rely on it more day to day, vs the Network team. So the tests we run on the switch go to the Servers with the Agents on them in the Datacenters and we don't own them or support them.... but now that I think about it, I did a change control and updated them to the latest version that went from Ubuntu 18.x to 20 or 21.x.... anyway.

With all that being said I have not had my Cisco 9300 instances auto update. When I read that I had to look at that possibility because I didn't realize it could do that. I only really saw this page that mentions it: https://docs.thousandeyes.com/product-documentation/global-vantage-points/enterprise-agents/troubleshooting/troubleshooting-automatic-update-problems-on-enterprise-agents but I have never ran those commands on my switches before. I actually need to open up a ThousandEyes Case because I am updating my first ThousandEyes instance from 4.2.2 to 4.4.2. and would like to know the steps to do it before I mess it up.

So in my experience it doesn't auto update by itself, but if you have something that shows it might, definitely send me a link because now I am curious.

[abfentan · Accepted solution]

Hello @cryan and @john74355 , thank you for your responses. I just wanted to help clarify how ThousandEyes agents on Cisco switches upgrade. There are 2 different versions that we're discussing here:
 

1. The agent version. It is automatically upgraded for all enterprise agents, including the switches on the Cisco switches. This is controlled by you when you have a local mirror of the ThousandEyes Package repository.
2. The image version. This is not automatically upgraded. Certain features that are released rely on the image version supported. DNAC does not allow app modification after is launched. 

The options for image version upgrade are deploying the agent again or upgrading via CLI, using the command "app-hosting upgrade" as stated in the Application Hosting documentation here. I hope this helps.

I hope this helps. 

[abfentan]

Hello @Chris345, thank you for posting your use case. We will reach out to you in the next 2 weeks with instructions on how to claim your t-shirt. Appreciate your participation in the Community!