On January 24th, 2018 ThousandEyes took center stage at Networking Field Day 17 (NFD17). ThousandEyes is no stranger to NFD (check out our previous sessions at NFD12, NFD8 and NFD6) and as before, we had a great session filled with in-depth conversations and geeky humor. For those of you less familiar with NFD, it is a multi-day event organized as a part of Tech Field Day by Gestalt IT, that brings together product vendors and independent IT leaders. What makes NFD special and valuable for IT professionals is the combination of innovative technology showcased by the vendors and the team of knowledgeable delegates who aren’t afraid to ask pointed questions.
ThousandEyes was one of the eight companies presenting at the three day event to a panel of twelve delegates. The delegate panel included some well known personalities including Greg Ferro, Drew Conry-Murray of Packet Pushers fame, Phil Gervasi and Eyvonne Sharp. In today’s blog post we will summarize the presentations at NFD17.
What is Network Intelligence. Why Is it Important NOW?
Alex Henthorn-Iwane, VP of Product Marketing, kick started things by talking through the transformation of the enterprise WAN and the subsequent blindspot that results. Alex said “The challenge with adopting the cloud and the Internet as the backbone of the enterprise communication is, you are relying on networks that you do not control and worse you can’t even see.” Network monitoring and visibility have traditionally been focused on harnessing data within the four walls of the enterprise and as these boundaries slowly disappear with the Internet-centric nature of the WAN, traditional monitoring techniques fall short. ThousandEyes Network Intelligence helps enterprises overcome Internet blindness by combining and correlating unique data sets from the perspective of the end-user. Watch Alex describe Network Intelligence and explain the key components of the solution.
Making Your Network Intelligent: Deep Dive into Use Cases and the ThousandEyes Solution
Nick Kephart, Senior Director of Product Management, led the second segment at NFD. In his session, Nick discussed customer use cases and how Network Intelligence is utilized in the real world. If you are new to ThousandEyes and would like to get an overview of the product, I would recommend tuning into this segment below. It delves into the fundamentals of the product, different data types generated and correlated to produce intuitive visualizations.
Nick walked through three specific scenarios, each accompanied with its own demo. While ThousandEyes can be deployed in a variety of different use cases, the session focussed on the following three deployment models.
- Monitoring your customer’s digital experience
- Managing SaaS applications like Office 365
- Monitoring end-user experience in a Hybrid WAN
Deconstructing Device Layer
Last year we took a step forward towards integrating application visibility with device behaviour. Device Layer, a functionality available through Enterprise Agents, provides visibility into your internal network devices by gathering network device topology, interface and health metrics. Device Layer enhances Path Visualization by correlating device context, with IP forwarding path, routing and application-layer metrics.
In the third installment from NFD, Thom Haddow, Lead Software Engineer and SNMP standards enthusiast, took us behind the scenes with Device Layer. Thom dove deep into the underpinning technology of Device Layer and why a new approach to device monitoring is critical in the world of cloud and apps. If you are interested to know more about Device Layer and how to get started, watch Thom’s session below.
Avoiding Outage Outrage with Internet Intelligence
Last but not the least, Ricardo Oliveira, CTO and Co-Founder, closed it out with a session on ThousandEyes’ work on Internet Intelligence. Internet Intelligence focuses on mapping dependencies between users, applications and various service providers. The idea behind Internet Intelligence is to provide the data for users to detect and identify service outages globally and how they relate to their business.
NFD has always been an excellent event for us and this year was no different. The delegates showed real depth and knowledge, so it was fun fielding questions from them. If these sessions piqued your interest in ThousandEyes and you want to put Network Intelligence to use within your enterprise, sign up for a free trial and get access to all the features and technology you just witnessed.