What is Cisco ThousandEyes?

Introduction to Cisco ThousandEyes

This session introduces the value and evolution of Cisco ThousandEyes and how it has become a strategic addition for organisations looking to strengthen visibility across complex digital environments. Following the acquisition of Splunk by Cisco, ThousandEyes naturally complements the capabilities of observability and monitoring platforms by extending visibility beyond traditional tools. It allows organisations to see the performance and health of external networks and services that are often critical to digital operations but lie outside their direct control.

Why Digital Dependence Matters

Three Pillars of Consideration

Modern digital infrastructure requires consideration of three key areas: regulation, risk assurance, and digital competence. For example, the financial sector is now subject to the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), which sets regulatory standards for operational resilience. While other sectors such as healthcare, utilities and transport are not yet bound by these regulations, similar expectations around resilience and assurance are emerging.

The Scale of Outages

There are an estimated 10,000 digital outages globally each year, with around a third of those occurring in Europe. A high-profile example occurred in July 2024 when a software issue caused widespread disruption. Even organisations that were not direct customers of the affected provider experienced downtime through upstream dependencies. This highlights the scale of risk, as over 6 billion transactions per day can be affected, a figure projected to rise to 50 trillion by 2030.

Visibility Gaps

Compliance does not automatically equate to resilience. If services that customers or employees depend on sit outside the core infrastructure, visibility into those systems is essential. Without clear paths from users to applications or domains, delays in identifying root causes can severely impact operations.

The Cost of Downtime

Real-World Examples

An incident involving a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack demonstrated the difference ThousandEyes can make. One organisation with ThousandEyes deployed was able to pinpoint the issue quickly. Another, without the tool, suffered extended disruption. Costs totalled $96,000 per hour, with more than half attributed to revenue loss. Additional indirect costs included operational recovery, fines, and lost productivity as teams searched for the source of the issue without the benefit of end-to-end visibility.

Escalating Downtime Costs

Estimates for downtime costs have significantly increased. Once calculated at around $100,000 an hour, they are now closer to $300,000 due to increased digital transaction volumes and reliance on interconnected systems. With UK enterprises potentially facing two to four outages annually, the financial risk is substantial. ThousandEyes doesn’t prevent all issues but reduces the time taken to detect and resolve them - helping to restore service faster and minimise disruption.

A Changing Digital Landscape

The Need for New Visibility

As organisations evolve, applications, infrastructure, employees and customers are becoming increasingly distributed. The traditional model of on-site networks connected to a central data centre no longer applies. Businesses now rely on third-party data centres, cloud platforms, APIs and software-as-a-service offerings. Visibility and control within this landscape are diminishing just as dependency on these external systems grows.

Work from Anywhere, Monitor from Anywhere

Modern workforces operate from homes, airports and hotels - locations where organisations cannot control the underlying network. When an employee cannot access critical tools such as unified communications platforms, Office 365, or Salesforce, productivity is lost. ThousandEyes endpoint agents enable IT teams to see where the problem lies - whether it's a local network or an external provider - and take appropriate action to resolve it.

Platform Demonstration and Use Case

Cloud Migration Visibility

One example involved an organisation migrating from an on-premise data centre to AWS. ThousandEyes performed synthetic page load testing before and after the migration. Latency rose significantly post-migration, with readings increasing from a steady 13ms to peaks of 55ms - indicating performance degradation.

Path Visualisation

The standout feature of ThousandEyes is its path visualisation capability. Before migration, network traffic from offices was routed directly to a central UK location. After migration, the same requests were dispersed across international destinations - including Ireland and the United States - due to a misconfigured content delivery network (CDN). Once the misconfiguration was resolved, content was served locally again, significantly reducing latency and improving user experience.

Focusing on Digital Experience

Today’s digital consumers expect flawless service. They are not seeking excellent experiences - they are simply trying to avoid poor ones. If a commonly used app or website experiences delay or failure, it immediately stands out. ThousandEyes helps ensure a consistent and reliable user experience by proactively identifying issues before they impact end users.

Flexible Integration Across the Network Stack

ThousandEyes is a network assurance platform designed for a wide range of use cases including hybrid work, enterprise networks, cloud environments and digital observability. It integrates with numerous technology stacks and platforms, enhancing overall visibility and resilience across infrastructure and applications.

A Complementary Solution

ThousandEyes is not a replacement for existing monitoring tools - it is a complementary layer. While overlap exists with other platforms, the strength of ThousandEyes lies in its ability to provide visibility into third-party services, external networks, and cloud-based systems. Its unique path visualisation makes it an essential component in ensuring digital assurance.

A Final Thought

The choice is clear. When outages occur, would it be preferable to suffer hours of unplanned downtime, or just minutes of disruption? ThousandEyes empowers organisations to identify, troubleshoot, and resolve issues swiftly - minimising impact and preserving productivity.