Cisco ThousandEyes: Digital Experience Monitoring and Troubleshooting
- By Aaron Trompeter, Robert W. Webb
- Published Aug 22, 2024 by Cisco Press. Part of the Networking Technology series.
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Description
- Copyright 2025
- Edition: 1st
- eBook
- ISBN-10: 0-13-830897-7
- ISBN-13: 978-0-13-830897-1
Cisco ThousandEyes, the cloud-based network intelligence tool, delivers expanded visibility, automated insights, and seamless workflows to ensure digital experiences across any networkwhether on premise, on the Internet, or in the cloud. ThousandEyes is the authority when monitoring SaaS, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments. With unparalleled real-time analytics and insights, it enables IT admins to quickly identify and resolve issues for a reduction of downtime and improved user experience.
In Cisco ThousandEyes, network solutions specialists Aaron Trompeter and Robert Webb offer a deep dive into the intricacies and power of the Cisco ThousandEyes platform and demonstrate how to leverage it to solve complex problems and optimize your digital experience. Through real-world experiences and use cases, the authors demonstrate how to plan and design network monitoring solutions, as well as how to improve performance and availability. Youll also learn how ThousandEyes can be integrated with other Cisco products and third-party tools.
This is an essential resource for any network administrator, DevOps engineer, IT professional, enterprise IT team, cloud engineer, application team, and service provider responsible for managing and optimizing the performance of an organizations network infrastructure and application performance.
- Explore Cisco ThousandEyes and its capabilities, and learn how to harness its potential for your organization
- Delve into agent setup, test configurations, alerts, and dashboards, and learn how to apply them effectively
- Understand the intricacies of monitoring and troubleshooting network performance issues, and use these skills to enhance network efficiency
- Conduct advanced tests using transactional scripts and integrations, and use them for complex problem-solving
- Implement best practices for test optimization and device monitoring to ensure optimal functionality
- Understand the importance of account settings and automation and their roles in streamlining operations
- Align the role of business strategy in the context of digital experience monitoring with your organizations goals
Sample Content
Table of Contents
Introduction xvi
Chapter 1 Introduction to ThousandEyes and Its Capabilities 1
How ThousandEyes Was Conceived 1
Understanding ThousandEyes Use Cases 2
Fundamental Network Metrics 3
Its the Network 3
Operational Impact 3
Packet Loss 4
Network Latency 7
Maximum Theoretical Throughput 11
Results 15
Review Questions 16
Chapter 2 Agent Setup 17
Enterprise Agents 17
Enterprise Agent Installation 18
Cisco Application Framework Installation 18
Open Virtual Appliance Installation 25
Enterprise Agent Using Docker 33
Enterprise Agent Using Linux 37
Enterprise Agent Utilization 39
Agent Cluster and Agent Clustering 41
Enterprise Agent Placement 44
Cloud Agents 45
Endpoint Agents 46
Review Questions 48
Chapter 3 Configuring Tests 49
Tests for Enterprise and Cloud Agents 49
Routing Layer 49
Configure Inside-Out BGP Visibility 51
Network Layer 53
Agent to Agent Test 53
Agent to Server Test 56
DNS Layer 58
DNS Server Test 59
DNS Trace Test 62
DNSSEC Test 64
Web Layer 66
HTTP Server Test 66
Page Load Tests 70
Transaction Test 73
FTP Server Test 74
Voice Layer 76
SIP Server Test 78
RTP Stream Test 80
Endpoint Agent Tests 82
Adding Multiple Tests to a Template 90
Dynamic Tests 90
Real User Tests 97
Monitored Domain Set 97
How Real User Tests Work 97
Review Questions 99
Chapter 4 Configuring Alerts 101
Alert Rules 101
Alert Conditions 103
Alert Notifications 104
Email Notifications 104
Webhooks 105
Alert Suppression 107
Finding the Source of the Alert 109
Alert History 110
Review Questions 110
Chapter 5 Dashboards 111
Dashboard Basics 111
Widgets 114
Creating a New Dashboard 116
Review Questions 121
Chapter 6 Monitoring and Troubleshooting Network Performance Issues 123
Understanding Views 123
Understanding Network Monitoring 125
System/Application Testing 127
End-to-End Network Testing 127
Hop-by-Hop Network Testing (Path Visualization) 129
SD-WAN Performance Monitoring 134
Network Overlay 134
Network Underlay 135
MPLS Performance Monitoring 136
MTU Best Practices 137
Overlay Network MTU 138
Underlay Network MTU 140
Alerting 141
Overloaded: An NFL Story 142
Review Questions 145
Chapter 7 Scripted Synthetic User Testing with Transaction Tests 147
What Is Selenium? 148
Page Load Test Versus Transaction Test 148
Set Up and Create a Transaction Test with the ThousandEyes Recorder 149
Troubleshooting and Debugging Transaction Test Scripts 153
Transaction Test Script Best Practices 154
Viewing the Transaction Test Data 155
Full Stack Observability for the Network Engineer 158
Output 158
Input 159
Processes 161
Review Questions 162
Chapter 8 Integrations 163
API Basics 163
Custom Webhooks 166
ServiceNow Integration 168
Cisco Integrations 175
Cisco Catalyst Center (Formerly Cisco DNA Center) 175
Cisco Meraki 181
Cisco Webex Control Hub 185
Cisco AppDynamics 187
Cisco SD-WAN 192
OpenTelemetry Integration 197
Review Questions 202
Chapter 9 Best Practices: Test Optimization, Collaboration, and Stories from the Field 203
ThousandEyes Test Optimization 203
End-to-End Testing: Probing Mode 206
Cumulative Acknowledgements 206
Selective Acknowledgements 208
SYN 210
Path Visualization 211
Path Trace Mode 211
No. of Path Traces 215
Probing and Path Trace Modes for Different Agent Types 216
Monitoring Collaboration Meetings 216
Webex 218
Cloud & Enterprise Agents 218
Endpoint Agents 218
Internet Insights 221
Teams 222
Cloud and Enterprise Agents 222
Endpoint Agents 227
Internet Insights 230
Zoom 231
Cloud and Enterprise Agents 232
Endpoint Agents 232
Internet Insights 233
Stories from the Field 235
FTP Throughput Analysis and Optimization 235
User Experience Versus Application Performance MetricCall Center SLA 239
Connections Failing at Load Balancer 241
Load Balancing with 20% Failure Rate 243
When MSS Matters 244
Bizarre Failure Is Not Adding Up 248
Problem Description 248
First Progress 249
Hypothesis 250
First Significant Finding 250
Eureka! 251
Review Questions 253
Chapter 10 Device Monitoring 255
ThousandEyes Device Monitoring 255
Device Discovery 259
Scheduled Discovery 262
Discovered Devices 264
Device Details 265
Device Alerts 266
Device Notifications 269
Device Views 269
Path Visualization with Device Monitoring 272
Operational Insights 273
Replacing a Device with a New Piece of Hardware 273
Polling 273
Topology 273
Agent Clusters 274
Review Questions 274
Chapter 11 Account Administration 275
Adding a New User 275
Default Roles 276
Account Groups 277
Role-Based Access Control 279
Single Sign-On with ThousandEyes 281
Identity Provider Setup 282
ThousandEyes Setup 282
Imported Metadata Configuration 284
Activity Log 285
Time Selector 286
Add a Filter 287
Download Logs 288
Usage 289
Usage Tab 290
Quotas Tab 291
Review Questions 293
Chapter 12 AutomationUse Cases and Case Studies 295
Use Case 1: Automated Testing Basics 295
Webhooks on GitHub 296
Use Case 2: Jenkins 297
Use Case 3: Ansible Playbook 299
Use Case 4: Kubernetes 300
Scaling ThousandEyes via Automation 301
Operationalizing 301
Dashboards for Comparisons 301
Inside Your Network vs. Outside Your Network (the Internet) 302
Comparing ISPs 304
Comparing In-Office and Outside-of-Office User Experience 304
Comparing Inside a Building by Floors and Zones 306
Data Center Monitoring 306
VXLAN Versus Traditional Layer 2/Layer 3 307
Agent Placement 307
Additional Note for Cisco Nexus Devices 308
Review Questions 308
Chapter 13 Business Strategy for Engineers 309
Bridge the Divide: Aligning Technical Expertise with Business Strategy 309
Appendix A Answers to Review Questions 315
Appendix B Troubleshooting 323
Glossary 333
9780138309183 TOC 8/1/2024