Cisco ThousandEyes... Good, but can be complicated.
Updated March 20, 2025

Cisco ThousandEyes... Good, but can be complicated.

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Cisco ThousandEyes

We use Cisco ThousandEyes to help diagnose network issues, both on and off our local network. We have lots of monitoring out there on machines, especially problematic workstations of radiologists, etc. The product helps us identify where the fault lies when people have connectivity issues.

Pros

  • Identify network issues
  • Locate network issues
  • Help monitor critical apps

Cons

  • Even with the 2.0 interface, the GUI has a lot of room to be more intuitive.
  • Sorting data can be a lot of work and requires a lot of clicks at times.
  • The data that Cisco ThousandEyes provides us frees up time for our network engineers and lets us get more work done.
We did briefly look into Dynatrace, but it was too much product for what we needed though and was much more expensive then just adding the licensing to our Cisco existing licenses.

Do you think Cisco ThousandEyes delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Cisco ThousandEyes's feature set?

Yes

Did Cisco ThousandEyes live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Cisco ThousandEyes go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Cisco ThousandEyes again?

Yes

SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (npm)
I think if you have a lot of remote employees, this is a great product to help identify those issues and where they lie. This has helped us identify the root of connectivity issues not only on site, but also off site and has been incredibly helpful in that aspect.

Cisco Hybrid Work

  • Webex Meetings
  • Cisco Umbrella
  • Working from anywhere (e.g., coffee shop, airport)
  • Working from an office or other company space
  • Working from home
We are 100% hybrid at this point since 2020. We have workers all over the United States that log in via Palo Alto GlobalProtect and we protect them using Cisco Umbrella as well. We also support remote locations via GRE tunnels or site-to-site tunnels.
I believe the influx of 100% remote work was very hard to keep up with in 2020 and into 2021, but then we got our footing and everything has been pretty smooth since that time. We did struggle with licensing and getting equipment out to people remotely, also getting the initial configuration of a remote workstation up and running remotely was challenging.
Well, we do use Cisco Umbrella to help secure our on-prem and remote users. This is probably the only Cisco product we currently use to assist us with hybrid deployment and protection. We do use WebEx for our phone calls, though, and that integrates very well with our workflow.
We have experienced some downtime when web services have an issue, but that's about the only real difficulty we face now that we're fully hybrid.
Well, getting back to ThousandEyes. We did not find a comparable product to help us troubleshoot our hybrid workers connections. DynaTrace did not work as well for us and that's the only other product we tried.
  • Webex
  • Microsoft Teams

Using Cisco ThousandEyes

25 - We are using ThousandEyes to monitor and troubleshoot our remote radiologist's workstations and connectivity.
10 - Our network team helps support ThousandEyes. One definitely needs to have an understanding of networking and basic PC skills in order to use the product efficiently.
  • Network Connectivity
  • Slowness
  • Remote connectivity
  • Diagnosing remote connectivity issues
  • We may use it to help troubleshoot more remote connectivity in the future.
Most of our radiologists are no longer having issues, but the product was very helpful, and we may continue with a few licenses just to load when users are having connectivity issues remotely.

Evaluating Cisco ThousandEyes and Competitors

  • Ease of Use
The ease of use was the main concern with ThousandEyes. We didn't want to have to spend too much time deploying, configuring and learning how to use a new product in order to diagnose the issue we were having.
I don't think we'd change a thing. The evaluation was quick and painless, with everything basically being in the cloud and with very little configuration.

Cisco ThousandEyes Implementation

Our implementation was pretty straightforward, with some issues loading clients on endpoints. We didn't have any notable issues, and I don't really have any additional insights.
  • Implemented in-house
Change management was minimal - This was all cloud based and mostly passive monitoring, so we really didn't have any change control.
  • Loading clients on endpoints was tricky at first, but we got it done.

Cisco ThousandEyes Training

  • In-Person Training
Our Cisco reps actually had someone teach us a few things about the functionality of ThousandEyes, and it helped a lot. The training was good and we had follow-up assistance as well when we had questions about the monitoring and reporting functions. Overall, we were satisfied with the training and support.

Configuring Cisco ThousandEyes

You can do all sorts of things with ThousandEyes, but if you just want some basic connectivity monitoring, then it's pretty easy to set up and configure. However, the tool is very customizable and with enough time you could probably get it to do many different things.
No, I really don't, other than making sure you understand the results you are getting.
No - we have not done any customization to the interface
No - we have not done any custom code
No, none.

Cisco ThousandEyes Support

ThousandEyes support has been great. We did have a couple of questions when we initially set up clients on user's endpoints and they were answered swiftly via a TAC case.
ProsCons
Quick Resolution
Good followup
Knowledgeable team
Problems get solved
Kept well informed
No escalation required
Immediate help available
Support understands my problem
Support cares about my success
Quick Initial Response
None
No, because we didn't really feel like we needed it.
We had very personal support through our local Cisco rep and that was super nice to have when initially deploying ThousandEyes.

Using Cisco ThousandEyes

There is definitely a learning curve to ThousandEyes, but once you understand how the client deployment works and how to set up monitoring, things go pretty smoothly.

I think the initial setting up of clients on endpoints can be a little tricky though.
ProsCons
Like to use
Well integrated
Consistent
Quick to learn
Convenient
None
  • Displaying relevant connection information
  • Reporting on results
  • The initial set up of the client on endpoints can be a little tricky.

Cisco ThousandEyes Reliability

I think this product would be infinitely scalable since it's all cloud hosted and can support thousands of endpoints if needed. We are only using it for a limited number of endpoints, so we never really considered scalability.
Being cloud hosted means that you are at the mercy of Cisco web services, but we've had absolutely no issues with its availability.
The client is very lightweight on endpoints and the user interface is very fast and fluid.

Integrating Cisco ThousandEyes

We have Cisco ThousandEyes integrated with our DNA and ISE, which makes it work really seamlessly with those products. We have some more work to do on this front, but the capability is there, even as a cloud product.
  • Cisco DNA
  • Cisco ISE
It's very lightly integrated, but it wasn't very difficult to get functioning.
  • n/a
  • n/a
  • n.a
Not sure.
  • API (e.g. SOAP or REST)
Take your time, read the paperwork and pay attention to the steps.

Relationship with Cisco

Cisco was great in setting us up with ThousandEyes and even giving us a training session.
The Cisco team is always great to us here in the Pacific Northwest.
We just needed a handful of licenses, so this wasn't really an issue. We have that for a year.
The contract was fair and rolled up into some of our other contracts, so it was no big deal getting it up and running.
Just be honest with your needs and make sure you have a trustworthy vendor.

Upgrading Cisco ThousandEyes

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