Cisco ThousandEyes

Our main use case for ThousandEyes is monitoring external applications like Microsoft 365, Salesforce, ServiceNow, or multi-cloud infrastructure. Our primary use case is gaining visibility into SaaS applications and public cloud connections that run over network infrastructure we don't own. Before ThousandEyes, when a SaaS application slowed down, we couldn't tell if the problem was our local network, the ISP, or the application provider. ThousandEyes gives us a hop-by-hop path visualization, so we immediately isolate fault domains and share evidence directly with third-party vendors to resolve issues.

We had a Monday morning where hundreds of remote users reported that Microsoft 365 or Teams was lagging with dropping calls. Historically, our IT helpdesk would have wasted hours checking local Wi-Fi, restarting firewalls, or opening tickets with our internal ISP. Using our path visualization view, we quickly noticed that our internal network and local ISP hops were completely clean. However, a fourth hop deep into a major transit provider's peering, latency spiked from 15 ms to 280 ms with 25% packet loss. The outcome was that instead of guessing, we generated a live URL with a path trace and sent it directly to the Tier 3 team. The transit provider acknowledged a routing loop on their end and fixed it within 45 minutes. This saved our infrastructure team at least three to four hours of useless internal troubleshooting.

What makes it unique about how our team leverages ThousandEyes is that instead of just testing a specific endpoint, ThousandEyes aggregates anonymous test data from thousands of agents globally across ISPs, SaaS providers, and cloud data infrastructure. ThousandEyes offers Internet Insights, which acts as a weather radar of the public internet before our own helpdesk even receives a ticket. We can see if a massive outage is sweeping through AWS East or Cloudflare or a regional Tier 1 ISP. We don't have to waste time running local diagnosis because collective intelligence immediately shows us macro-level internet outages.

ThousandEyes isn't just an internal monitoring tool; it's an internet visibility engine. It turns external unowned networks into public ISPs and SaaS environments into transparent, measurable infrastructures.

ThousandEyes benefits my organization through metrics that show reduction in mean time to resolution, with a 40% to 60% reduction in MTTR. Instead of hours spent manually collecting traceroutes or holding war room calls across teams, engineers identify point-to-point root causes in minutes, detecting an ISP peering hop drop versus an application server issue. This also reduces mean time to detect or identify incidents. AI summaries and path visualization immediately highlight whether packet loss or latency is occurring on-site across SD-WAN or within external SaaS providers' infrastructures. Ticket escalation and help load metrics show a 30% plus drop in escalated Tier 3 network tickets and first contact resolution improvements. Tier 1 and Tier 2 helpdesk teams can directly diagnose last-mile Wi-Fi or local ISP issues via endpoint agents, avoiding unnecessary escalations to senior network architects.

The best features that define ThousandEyes' value include end-to-end path visualization and Internet Insights as macro outage detection. It matters because it automatically detects macro outages across major ISPs. ShareLinks generate live or read-only URL snapshots of active or historical test results. ShareLinks are used primarily for my field as a network engineer, used for BGP or route visualization and multi-layer agent deployment fleet. WAN or Cloud Insights is another valuable feature. AI operations and assistant integrations complete the set of features we consider most valuable.

As the network engineer and operations team, the primary benefit of ShareLinks is transforming vendor escalations and cross-team collaboration from a time-consuming back and forth into an efficient, data-driven process, which eliminates vendor blame games and scripted triage. A ShareLink provides a live, interactive 3D map of the network path and the exact moment that incident occurred, where third-party engineers can drag or zoom and inspect specific router interfaces or latency spikes and packet loss metrics directly. This cuts the mean time to resolution. As a network engineer, I bypass Tier 1 and Tier 2 helpdesk triage by attaching a ShareLink to vendor tickets, demonstrating proof of where the traffic is dropping within the vendor backbone or peering point.

Cisco has embedded AI capabilities and integrations into ThousandEyes to automate root cause analysis and reduce manual diagnostic efforts. The AI algorithms automatically synthesize complex data across Layer 3 to Layer 7 and generate a human-readable executive summary. For example, latency increases by 180 ms due to packet loss at an upstream Cogent peering interface in Frankfurt. This enables Tier 1 NOC staff to triage issues without immediately escalating to Tier 3 network architects.

Highlighting these advanced or high-value capabilities of ThousandEyes will set our review apart. Advanced capabilities include adaptive alert detection, noise reduction, multi-step API synthetic testing, open telemetry integrations, open observability, edge-embedded deployments, and Cisco Assurance in genetic ops.

ThousandEyes needs to specify unit consumption forecasting or scaling testing and deeper app analytics. It needs deeper out-of-the-box Layer 7 code or database-level insights. Additionally, it should unify the GUI with broader Cisco platforms and flatten the learning curve, adding better correlation with local laptop system metrics such as endpoint depth, CPU, RAM, or processes.

ThousandEyes isn't designed to be a full-blown SNMP monitoring tool for on-premises infrastructure. While it tracks network paths effectively, it doesn't provide deep local device telemetry such as switch port buffer utilization, fan status, or power supply health. For full internal device monitoring, you'll still need to pair it with traditional tools such as SolarWinds or Cisco Catalyst Center.

I have used ThousandEyes for four years.

Stability issues are present in the solution.

Backend architecture is seamless at 10 by 10, and global reach is instant at 10 by 10. For remote endpoints, it is 9 by 10, and cost and licensing is 7 by 10.

Customer support is highly responsive, deeply technical, and proactive.

Deploying agents across a hybrid multi-cloud environment is fast and straightforward. However, the unit consumption pricing model can be complex to forecast and requires careful ongoing management. This makes procurement most efficient when blended into a Cisco Enterprise Agreement or leveraged through an AWS Marketplace cloud commit.

The return on investment is immediate, delivering a 40% to 60% reduction in MTTR by eliminating multi-team war rooms and saving hundreds of engineering hours annually through instant ISP path proof, directly protecting business productivity and SaaS SLA accountability.

If I were giving advice to another NetOps team evaluating ThousandEyes, my main recommendation would be to focus on governance and operational workflows from day one. I would rate this review as a 9.

My main use case for ThousandEyes has been for two major tasks. Previously, while I was working at HCL Tech, I used ThousandEyes to monitor the enterprise network, focusing on latency and availability for various IP addresses and domains. Currently at Sohos, I am monitoring external connectivity towards the customer API using ThousandEyes.

My current example of how I use ThousandEyes for monitoring activity towards the customer API involves monitoring the SSL certificate of the particular APIs and the URL. We recently had an issue with the SSL certificate of one of the APIs that had expired, preventing the customer from gaining access to its services. When we checked in ThousandEyes, we received notification seven days prior to its expiration to check that certificate, which is one of the useful things we have implemented in ThousandEyes. Before using it, we did not receive such proactive reports.

I am using ThousandEyes for various purposes, including monitoring test types such as HTTPS, agent-to-server tests, HTTPS servers, and SSL certificate monitoring. I use it to monitor the customer APIs to ensure that the customer is successfully able to connect with our APIs. Monitoring external connectivity through ThousandEyes is how it is useful to us as a monitoring tool.

Before using ThousandEyes at Sohos, we did not have any monitoring setups, and every time there was an issue, the customer would report it, leaving us unaware of when the issue actually occurred. With ThousandEyes, we can monitor and see when something spikes or fails, which helps us measure and analyze the issue while providing actual logs.

Regarding specific outcomes since using ThousandEyes, we monitor latency towards the customer API and recently received an alert about a latency issue which was increasing. While troubleshooting that within one hour, we received a report from the customer highlighting that they were facing an issue with their services. I would consider that one of the proactive things ThousandEyes showed us before the customer reported it and it got escalated.

The best feature that ThousandEyes offers is primarily the dashboard setup, which I can see live during work. Since I am also involved in the implementation part, that is quite useful, allowing everything to be GUI-based, which means I do not need to learn any commands, although finding certain commands can be done if needed. Regarding the integration with various tools, that is also feasible.

Regarding the dashboard, all the major key metrics I need to monitor are visible on our live dashboard, and the setup of the dashboard is quite easy. Even someone who is a beginner to ThousandEyes can build that dashboard according to their needs after some training sessions. Regarding integration, if I need to integrate with external tools such as Grafana or a ticketing tool such as Jira or ServiceNow, it can be done easily within three to four steps with webhooks. Another tool that is useful is Enterprise Insights, which helps me know if there is any outage in any part of the world affecting our services. That is also one of the proactive things I can do in ThousandEyes.

Currently, I do not see any significant aspects that need enhancement in ThousandEyes. I am getting everything I need from ThousandEyes at this time.

One improvement I would suggest is regarding the login part, as I have not seen if SSO login integration is available in ThousandEyes. If that could be implemented to avoid setting up two different passwords, that would be very useful.

I have been using ThousandEyes for the past year.

ThousandEyes is stable.

ThousandEyes is quite scalable, as I can implement it across many branches and simply integrate it.

The customer support is quite impressive. I usually receive replies within one business day for non-critical issues and within one hour for critical matters, which is commendable.

I would rate the customer support between seven to eight on a scale of ten.

I can affirm that we have seen a return on investment, both in terms of money saved and time saved. We can also observe that the MTTR to resolve specific issues has decreased.

So far, we are utilizing 16,500 units per month on ThousandEyes, which accommodates most of our work. We manage over 100 tests within a one-to-ten day range, and at this volume, it is reasonably priced.

Before choosing ThousandEyes, my company did not evaluate other options.

I would advise others looking into using ThousandEyes to consider it one of the best tools for monitoring their network infrastructure. I would rate this product nine out of ten.

My main use case for ThousandEyes is path monitoring.

I use ThousandEyes for path monitoring to see how my traffic is flowing in my network, what the hops are in between, and then see at what hop exactly the issue occurs whenever it happens. So for example, the recent use cases that we have implemented is the hub-spoke topology for one of our customers wherein they had a hub and multiple spokes. Then we created the paths using ThousandEyes to monitor continuous performance between hub and spokes.

Other use cases would be to monitor cloud performance, checking HTTP URL availability, or web session monitoring, and others.

I think the best features that ThousandEyes offers are path monitoring, and obviously, the HTTP monitoring and the others are also good.

For the path monitoring feature, what stands out to me is the ability to see the unmanaged network. ThousandEyes has a lot of vantage points across the world, it helps us quickly identify whenever there is an issue with an ISP or MSP or even at the cloud site, and how that is visually described is what I find really useful.

ThousandEyes has positively impacted my organization because of the ability to identify issues proactively. Digital experience monitoring is an integral part of observability and monitoring nowadays. I need to know not only what's happening in my network, but also what's happening in the network that's not managed by me.

I have seen specific outcomes and improvements since using ThousandEyes such as reduced downtimes, faster troubleshooting, and identifying root causes faster.

I think ThousandEyes can be improved, specifically the licensing model.

It's too complex, too expensive, and it takes a lot of time to manage the licensing model.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing indicates that the licensing model is quite challenging. Every path, the frequency of gathering the data, consumes the units, so that's where I think a lot of improvement is needed or a lot of simplicity needs to be added.

I have been using ThousandEyes for probably four years.

ThousandEyes is stable.

ThousandEyes is very scalable.

The customer support is very good.

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the customer support as an eight.

We haven't used other solutions before.

The setup is easy.

I did not purchase ThousandEyes through the AWS Marketplace.

I think the return on investment is mainly in time saved because the amount of effort needed to troubleshoot an issue when it is with an ISP is saved.

It's too complex, too expensive, and it takes a lot of time to manage the licensing model.

We haven't evaluated any other options before choosing ThousandEyes.

I would not add anything else about the features.

I haven't used the AI capabilities, so I'm not too sure about its accuracy and reliability of output.

We haven't faced any specific challenges with hybrid and distributed enterprise networks that Cisco addresses. ThousandEyes is a great product. The only thing is they need to improve the licensing model.

From ThousandEyes perspective, Cisco indeed optimizes the experience in a hybrid or distributed enterprise setup.

I am really impressed with the end-to-end visibility offered by Cisco through ThousandEyes.

End-to-end visibility from ThousandEyes affects my organization's troubleshooting capabilities because sometimes the problem is not in my network. Sometimes the problem is in the cloud or sometimes the problem is with the ISPs that provide the services, so ThousandEyes is able to quickly identify those and reduces our time to troubleshoot.

I would advise others looking into using ThousandEyes to look at the licensing model and also look at the dashboarding capabilities as well. When I used it last time, dashboarding was not really great, so these two cautions I would give them.

Overall it is a great product, but a few improvements are needed. I would rate this review an eight out of ten.

I am a running consultant for ThousandEyes, and as a consultant, I have to perform the build case as well as running on capacity management, as well as the end-to-end connectivity monitoring through ThousandEyes.

I am working on multiple customers currently. For some customers, I have to build ThousandEyes agent on end-to-end agent or Enterprise agent, and I have to build those and run the test on those agents so that I can monitor the customer network. For other customers, I have to try to identify the incident raised by the customer CSM or something similar, and I try to find out the RCA for those incidents.

Apart from these two use cases, I have to manage the users as well, creating the users, managing the users, and to update the certificates and other items on ThousandEyes portal for the customers.

In comparison to others, ThousandEyes is having several features, but the most features that I am using are the Enterprise agents where we used it the most, and Path Visualization is another feature that we used for troubleshooting as well. Apart from this, the endpoint agent needs to be configured, and I try to find out how these endpoint agents work on the system of customer devices.

When we are troubleshooting, in our earlier scenario, we had to take a lot of time to try to find out where the issue is and what the issues are because in regular troubleshooting, when doing the ping and trace route, we had to find out where the issue is and how we could fix it. In ThousandEyes, ideally, we got all these things in one shot. In Path Visualization, we have the hop-to-hop information so that if something is stuck somewhere, the red button is shown there, so we can find out that the issue is there. This also gives us the identification of that particular item, and if I talk about the IP address, we have that, and then we can try to find out or we have to contact with the ISP or something similar. If there is an issue with the ISP, then we have to catch up with the ISP if there is any issue at that particular time, and then we can interact with them.

All the features are good, and ideally, we are using these two features currently with our customers. Another feature that I know about is Internet Insight, where we have the information regarding the outages, and where the issues are mentioned in that particular part.

ThousandEyes actually advanced the troubleshooting part and the monitoring of the devices, or I would say the management of the devices with monitoring and to identify the root cause. It was very helpful in that sense because I am working on multiple customers, so for every customer, we use ThousandEyes. If we do not use ThousandEyes, then it was very difficult for us to understand where the issue is, how to identify those issues, and how we can drive the RCA on those customers. Another thing that I think is very beneficial in the current scenario is the AI assistance of ThousandEyes, which helps us to identify the root cause analysis.

I think ThousandEyes could include some other devices or servers and that kind of monitoring capability which currently ThousandEyes is not using. Additionally, something related with the security would be beneficial. If they include the security part as well in terms of monitoring, then it would be good.

I have been using ThousandEyes since 2021.

ThousandEyes has been stable.

ThousandEyes is working fine and is excellent in terms of adding the devices or adding the agents and adding the test based on the licenses that we have. It is capable enough to be scalable.

Customer support from ThousandEyes was good. Whenever I raise the queries, I got the prompt answer on that as well as the solution that we needed. I received that kind of support from ThousandEyes.

Before ThousandEyes, we worked on some other solutions including Riverbed and Ipanema Infovista at that time, and those were more on hardware-based and they were not providing that kind of capability in terms of the application because we used Riverbed before 2021. Then we switched over from those products to ThousandEyes or LiveNX or that kind of products, because of the capabilities that ThousandEyes and other products provide in terms of cloud-based solutions and SASE part of these solutions. Additionally, they are providing much more visibility in terms of the network and end-to-end visibility.

Currently I am not actually dealing with licensing and something similar because that was done by the presales team, but whenever I raise the queries with the team, I got the response from them, and that is good.

I am not the right person to answer this question because I am a consultant. As a consultant, I usually am on the customer's run side, so the impact should be there. A positive impact should be there in terms of the customers in that they are very happy when they are using ThousandEyes right now, and earlier, they had multiple issues with the teams. That is the part where we can say that ThousandEyes is working effectively.

In terms of ROI, I am not aware of that because I have not calculated that right now, so it is quite difficult for me to say anything on that part. The time and employee part is very good and is up to the mark.

I am not the right person to answer this question because I am a consultant. As a consultant, I usually am on the customer's run side, so the impact should be there. A positive impact should be there in terms of the customers in that they are very happy when they are using ThousandEyes right now, and earlier, they had multiple issues with the teams. That is the part where we can say that ThousandEyes is working effectively.

In terms of ROI, I am not aware of that because I have not calculated that right now, so it is quite difficult for me to say anything on that part. The time and employee part is very good and is up to the mark.

Currently I am not actually dealing with licensing and something similar because that was done by the presales team, but whenever I raise the queries with the team, I got the response from them, and that is good.

We used ThousandEyes as well as we used LiveNX, LiveSP, and some other products as well, though I am not remembering the names.

The advice to other customers for using ThousandEyes is that if it suits your environment in terms of monitoring and visibility purpose, and you have enough budget for that, then go for it. I think it would be good in terms of the Enterprise agent, in terms of end-to-end visibility, in terms of Path Visualization, in terms of Internet Insight. All the features are very good, and it has the capability to reduce your operational expenses and increase the efficiency in terms of operations. It would be excellent. I would rate this product a 9 out of 10.

I have been using ThousandEyes for the past four years.

The main use case for ThousandEyes is in the visualization of paths and it also helps in troubleshooting, software optimization, and understanding where there is packet loss. It enables me to troubleshoot if there is a downtime and also provides visibility to notice if there is an internal network problem or ISP problems. These are the primary use cases. ThousandEyes enables me to be aware of any performance degradation before users report any problem or issues are being reported.

A great specific example where I used ThousandEyes in solving a problem is as a tool for troubleshooting. I use it in troubleshooting complex network applications, especially with the integration of ThousandEyes with AWS. We use it to monitor our ISP, our third-party services, and also to monitor our DNS and our software application performance. The usage of ThousandEyes really helped in creating an end-to-end visibility. Instead of guessing where there might be a network issue, ThousandEyes made it very clear whether the problem was in our internal network, ISP, or a third-party service.

ThousandEyes really helped me in noticing latency issues in our network. This really helps a lot for us to know how to improve our network, especially when it comes to performance issues or ISP issues. Also, in our cloud and SaaS performance monitoring, it helps us to monitor the actual users in our SaaS applications and also to detect packet loss outside our own infrastructure. Because our own infrastructure is hosted on AWS, ThousandEyes being hosted on AWS really helps us to detect any packet loss in our infrastructure and also notice any performance against incident periods and identify anomalies very clearly. Another good use case that helped me so well is that ThousandEyes helped me to confirm whether performance actually improved or if new issues were introduced, especially when I'm trying to monitor packet loss or latency issues.

ThousandEyes has really impacted my organization because my organization works a lot with SaaS products and also services other endpoints. It has really helped my organization to not have to hop from different endpoints to see exactly where latency loss or routing issues occur. It has also really helped our organization to understand the importance of performance observability and to understand the risk and single points of failure. The application of ThousandEyes on both internal and external services has helped us to better understand the idea of performance across regions and how internet conditions can vary globally.

There is a reduction in the time spent on root cause analysis. Sometimes, figuring out the root cause without concrete evidence of where the problem is can cause more errors and problems. With ThousandEyes, we are able to perform root cause analysis very effectively, and this also reduces the time spent on troubleshooting. Troubleshooting can be very complex, and if we don't have the right incident sensor, a lot of time can be wasted trying to troubleshoot a small problem. But with ThousandEyes' detection and the ability to provide the right agents, it makes troubleshooting very easy and reduces the time we waste. Faster troubleshooting is essential, and the detection of the root cause is great with the usage of ThousandEyes. I really recommend ThousandEyes for organizations that rely heavily on cloud services or external providers because it provides clear accountability when issues arise.

The best features that ThousandEyes offers are end-to-end network path visualization, and also cloud and internet performance monitoring across the public internet and cloud services. Also, agent deployments are a great feature. This includes deploying lightweight agents in different locations such as on-premises, cloud, and remote sites. This enables the measurement of real user paths and performance. Another great feature of ThousandEyes is its dashboard and historical baselines. The dashboards can enhance historical trends that help you compare against current performance and old performance. This is a great feature, especially when exporting reports that help to explain issues to executives, vendors, or customers during collaboration, reporting, and alerting processes.

I find all of them fascinating and great. You cannot really say one is better than the other because they all work in collaboration to help you detect problems. The end goal is always to present the historical baselines and reports to stakeholders. As a software developer, I find the end-to-end visibility fantastic because it reduces the stress of my work trying to figure out where there is packet loss or latency issues. Also, agent deployment helps in monitoring, detection, and internet performance, which is great. Then, the dashboard's ability to detect a historical trend provides great analysis. This reduces the need for separate data analysis or incorporating a third-party SaaS to explain historical trends. For me, all the features are great and make ThousandEyes stand out among other observability products. I find all of them fantastic. As a software developer, the end-to-end visibility comes first, but there is also the aspect of explaining to management what the issue has been. The operational features are really fantastic. It's a great collaboration where one cannot do without the other.

The feature that surprises me and is very prominent is the ability to deploy agents in cloud regions. I work very well with AWS, and this is a great feature integration with ThousandEyes. The ability to deploy agents in different cloud regions is a great key for monitoring, even on-premises or hybrid infrastructure. Also, custom alerts really help to reduce team noise and focus on real incidents. I find it fantastic. Another ability is the internet outage intelligence. This correlates with internet issues by monitoring the data. Right now, performance optimization is very important with the usage of SaaS products or when you host your infrastructure on a cloud. When there is an internet downtime, it causes heavy traffic. With ThousandEyes being able to detect and monitor this, it's fantastic for me. It reduces the workload and also reduces errors in trying to figure out where there is internet downtime, low visibility, or other incidents. I really find this aspect of ThousandEyes great. There could be improvement in the future, but for now, it works perfectly when you compare ThousandEyes with other observability products.

ThousandEyes can be improved based on path visualization. When you're trying to check exactly where traffic was impacted, the path visualization could be improved by pinpointing the actual performance problem and also detecting the right outages. For me, path visualization is a great area for improvement in ThousandEyes, as well as providing the right agents to detect where problems are occurring. Another area of improvement could be proactive incident detection. Incidents should be alerted on and traced early, before they escalate to full outages. With ThousandEyes, there should be the possibility of alerting on incidents. This helps in incident detection and being proactive so that time, which is essential, is not lost. An alert can be given so the problem can be solved very quickly. Alert detection and path visualization are two strong areas to improve on ThousandEyes.

The visual reports should be much easier to explain, for example, when explaining network issues to application teams and management. Also, when it comes to vendor accountability, the platform should be able to provide solid data to back up claims when working with service providers or on third-party issues. This is an aspect of integrating third-party providers on ThousandEyes, and especially when we talk about security, there should be solid data to back up claims. This would enable third-party vendors to know the essential work when they are integrated with ThousandEyes.

I chose eight out of ten because of the lack of objective performance data. With observability, performance data is very important, which isn't fully the case with ThousandEyes. Also, as I mentioned, path visualization needs improvement to provide better visibility into connectivity issues, especially with remote users across different regions. These are the two aspects I removed points for. ThousandEyes needs to improve its visibility, which can affect connectivity for remote users in different regions, and it needs to improve its path performance visibility. It also needs to improve its service level agreement in terms of performance data. It's all about the data, which is essential when explaining things to management or stakeholders.

The advice I would give others looking into ThousandEyes is that it's a great product. The ability to deploy agents in cloud regions is a key feature for monitoring hybrid, on-premises, and private cloud infrastructure. The custom alerts and dashboards help reduce noise and focus on real incidents, which is a great feature. Also, the ability for path visualization, addressing performance issues, and being proactive in troubleshooting complex network issues are great aspects of ThousandEyes. It can help organizations reduce the time they spend troubleshooting network issues or their ISP. Another aspect is the idea of proactive alerting, especially for latency loss thresholds. ThousandEyes is really good in that aspect, which can help define problems and improve current performance. I would rate this product an eight out of ten.