Cisco buys ThousandEyes for network-intelligence technology

Todd Nightingale (Cisco)

Cisco has unveiled plans to acquire network intelligence software provider ThousandEyes for an undisclosed amount.

Founded in 2010, the 400-employee ThousandEyes firm offers a cloud-based software package that analyses performance of local and wide-area networks and the internet.

Utilising its world-wide insights into service networks the company also tracks ISP, cloud and collaboration application performance via a family of intelligent cloud, enterprise and endpoint agents.

"ThousandEyes’ technology warns us when a user’s experience is less than ideal and can pinpoint where those failures were caused," wrote Todd Nightingale, senior vice president and general manager with Cisco in a blog post about the acquisition. "With thousands of agents deployed throughout the Internet, ThousandEyes’ platform has an unprecedented understanding of the Internet and grows more intelligent with every deployment.

“The ThousandEyes acquisition will enable deeper and broader visibility to pin-point deficiencies and improve the network and application performance across all networks your business relies on by enabling end-to-end visibility when accessing cloud applications. Internet Intelligence won’t just improve networking reliability, but end-to-end application experience."

Cisco said it envisions embedding ThousandEyes technology in a variety of its products including its AppDynamics application performance, SD-WAN, WebEx and Meraki families to enhance visibility across the enterprise, internet and the cloud.

With the acquisition, common tooling and sharing datasets for application and network health will help remove silos, giving IT teams at Cisco shops real-time visibility into application performance degradation issues, he stated.

The internet helps deliver cloud applications, but it is also the underlying backbone for SD-WAN services so it is key for customers to have the best insights into that network, said Mohit Lad CEO and co-founder of ThousandEyes in a call announcing the deal.

“We provide tons of network intelligence, and when that is married with actions such as network planning or failover decisions it's super powerful for users,” Lad said.

In the end how Cisco implements the technology will be key to how successful the acquisition becomes.

“Cisco buying ThousandEyes adds to its network intelligence portfolio," said Lee Doyle principal analyst at Doyle Research and Network World contributor. “ThousandEyes is a leading supplier network performance and internet monitoring, and it will be interesting to see how and where Cisco leverages this capability."

The acquisition was handled virtually – a first for Cisco – and is expected to close before the end of Cisco’s Q1 FY’21. ThousandEyes will join Cisco's newly formed Networking Services business unit, reporting to Nightingale. 

As part of the Networking Services business unit, ThousandEyes CEO Lad will take on the role of general manager of ThousandEyes and co-founder, CTO Ricardo Oliveira will continue to drive product strategy.