Cisco ThousandEyes

Aaron Trompeter is a technical solutions architect within the ThousandEyes global enterprise segment at Cisco, focusing on visibility and operational awareness for onprem, SaaS, and cloud native. In this role, he aligns his passion for education and learning with his motivation for helping the infrastructure community grow and learn to harness tools to provide use cases that fit each organization. Prior to this role, Aaron spent 6 years as a data center TSA within Cisco and had a few other roles within Cisco as a service provider specialist and software engineer in the Cloud Engineering unit. Aaron has more than 20 years of experience in the IT and engineering areas and has continued to focus on networking and software.Rob Webb began his technical career when, at 17 years old, he enlisted in the military as a teletype technician. His military service spanned more than 28 years, during which time he trained and worked in telecommunications systems, F-4 and F-16 avionics systems, and, eventually, Cyber Warfare Operations. Most of this time was spent working part-time in the Air National Guard. This allowed Rob to not only get the benefits of military training and experience but also to pursue a full-time career outside the military. He went from pulling cable to IT professional services to protocol analysis to pre-sales engineering/solutions architecture. Rob even ran his own consulting service, WEBNET Communication, where he achieved industry-recognized certifications in protocol analysis, which include Certified Network Expert (CNX), Sniffer Certified (SCM), and Certified NetAnalyst.Rob has spent his career solving complex problems for customers and helping them design and implement monitoring solutions so they can better solve those problems themselves. He has spent many hours collecting and analyzing packets to understand not only what is happening in each situation, but also what should be happening and what can be done to improve it. He often refers to these as opportunities for optimization. Rob joined ThousandEyes as a sales engineer in March, 2020.When Rob is not working, he keeps busy by enjoying outdoor activities such as fishing and photography. Now he combines the two in his sportfishing photography. You can follow Rob on LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/in/robertwebbcyberguy) or Instagram (@photographyinspiredbylife).

• Introduction xviChapter 1 Introduction to ThousandEyes and Its Capabilities 1How ThousandEyes Was Conceived 1Understanding ThousandEyes Use Cases 2Fundamental Network Metrics 3It’s the Network 3Operational Impact 3Packet Loss 4Network Latency 7Maximum Theoretical Throughput 11Results 15Review Questions 16Chapter 2 Agent Setup 17Enterprise Agents 17Enterprise Agent Installation 18Cisco Application Framework Installation 18Open Virtual Appliance Installation 25Enterprise Agent Using Docker 33Enterprise Agent Using Linux 37Enterprise Agent Utilization 39Agent Cluster and Agent Clustering 41Enterprise Agent Placement 44Cloud Agents 45Endpoint Agents 46Review Questions 48Chapter 3 Configuring Tests 49Tests for Enterprise and Cloud Agents 49Routing Layer 49Configure Inside-Out BGP Visibility 51Network Layer 53Agent to Agent Test 53Agent to Server Test 56DNS Layer 58DNS Server Test 59DNS Trace Test 62DNSSEC Test 64Web Layer 66HTTP Server Test 66Page Load Tests 70Transaction Test 73FTP Server Test 74Voice Layer 76SIP Server Test 78RTP Stream Test 80Endpoint Agent Tests 82Adding Multiple Tests to a Template 90Dynamic Tests 90Real User Tests 97Monitored Domain Set 97How Real User Tests Work 97Review Questions 99Chapter 4 Configuring Alerts 101Alert Rules 101Alert Conditions 103Alert Notifications 104Email Notifications 104Webhooks 105Alert Suppression 107Finding the Source of the Alert 109Alert History 110Review Questions 110Chapter 5 Dashboards 111Dashboard Basics 111Widgets 114Creating a New Dashboard 116Review Questions 121Chapter 6 Monitoring and Troubleshooting Network Performance Issues 123Understanding Views 123Understanding Network Monitoring 125System/Application Testing 127End-to-End Network Testing 127Hop-by-Hop Network Testing (Path Visualization) 129SD-WAN Performance Monitoring 134Network Overlay 134Network Underlay 135MPLS Performance Monitoring 136MTU Best Practices 137Overlay Network MTU 138Underlay Network MTU 140Alerting 141Overloaded: An NFL Story 142Review Questions 145Chapter 7 Scripted Synthetic User Testing with Transaction Tests 147What Is Selenium? 148Page Load Test Versus Transaction Test 148Set Up and Create a Transaction Test with the ThousandEyes Recorder 149Troubleshooting and Debugging Transaction Test Scripts 153Transaction Test Script Best Practices 154Viewing the Transaction Test Data 155Full Stack Observability for the Network Engineer 158Output 158Input 159Processes 161Review Questions 162Chapter 8 Integrations 163API Basics 163Custom Webhooks 166ServiceNow Integration 168Cisco Integrations 175Cisco Catalyst Center (Formerly Cisco DNA Center) 175Cisco Meraki 181Cisco Webex Control Hub 185Cisco AppDynamics 187Cisco SD-WAN 192OpenTelemetry Integration 197Review Questions 202Chapter 9 Best Practices: Test Optimization, Collaboration, and Stories from the Field 203ThousandEyes Test Optimization 203End-to-End Testing: Probing Mode 206Cumulative Acknowledgements 206Selective Acknowledgements 208SYN 210Path Visualization 211Path Trace Mode 211No. of Path Traces 215Probing and Path Trace Modes for Different Agent Types 216Monitoring Collaboration Meetings 216Webex 218Cloud & Enterprise Agents 218Endpoint Agents 218Internet Insights 221Teams 222Cloud and Enterprise Agents 222Endpoint Agents 227Internet Insights 230Zoom 231Cloud and Enterprise Agents 232Endpoint Agents 232Internet Insights 233Stories from the Field 235FTP Throughput Analysis and Optimization 235User Experience Versus Application Performance Metric—Call Center SLA 239Connections Failing at Load Balancer 241Load Balancing with 20% Failure Rate 243When MSS Matters 244Bizarre Failure Is Not Adding Up 248Problem Description 248First Progress 249Hypothesis 250First Significant Finding 250Eureka! 251Review Questions 253Chapter 10 Device Monitoring 255ThousandEyes Device Monitoring 255Device Discovery 259Scheduled Discovery 262Discovered Devices 264Device Details 265Device Alerts 266Device Notifications 269Device Views 269Path Visualization with Device Monitoring 272Operational Insights 273Replacing a Device with a New Piece of Hardware 273Polling 273Topology 273Agent Clusters 274Review Questions 274Chapter 11 Account Administration 275Adding a New User 275Default Roles 276Account Groups 277Role-Based Access Control 279Single Sign-On with ThousandEyes 281Identity Provider Setup 282ThousandEyes Setup 282Imported Metadata Configuration 284Activity Log 285Time Selector 286Add a Filter 287Download Logs 288Usage 289Usage Tab 290Quotas Tab 291Review Questions 293Chapter 12 Automation—Use Cases and Case Studies 295Use Case 1: Automated Testing Basics 295Webhooks on GitHub 296Use Case 2: Jenkins 297Use Case 3: Ansible Playbook 299Use Case 4: Kubernetes 300Scaling ThousandEyes via Automation 301Operationalizing 301Dashboards for Comparisons 301Inside Your Network vs. Outside Your Network (the Internet) 302Comparing ISPs 304Comparing In-Office and Outside-of-Office User Experience 304Comparing Inside a Building by Floors and Zones 306Data Center Monitoring 306VXLAN Versus Traditional Layer 2/Layer 3 307Agent Placement 307Additional Note for Cisco Nexus Devices 308Review Questions 308Chapter 13 Business Strategy for Engineers 309Bridge the Divide: Aligning Technical Expertise with Business Strategy 309Appendix A Answers to Review Questions 315Appendix B Troubleshooting 323Glossary 3339780138309183    TOC  8/1/2024

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