Using the Path Visualization View

When you create any test that includes network metrics – including Network, HTTP Server (with network measurements enabled), Page Load (with network measurements enabled), or DNS server (with network measurements enabled), you get access to the Path Visualization view for the test.

Interface Components

The screenshot below shows the Path Visualization view for an Agent-to-Server test.

1. Test selector – use this control to change which test is being displayed in the view. All tests will be shown here, including disabled tests and saved events.

2. Test settings – use this to open up test configuration for current test.

3. Run Now – Provides options to run current test in instant form with below options 1. Without changes : Run an instant test with existing test configuration. 2. With changes: Allows making changes to existing test configuration and run instant test with updated settings.

4. Views available for this test – shows a list of shortcuts to other views for the selected test.

5. Metric selector– choose between the various network metrics available; these metrics are listed below. Changing the selected metric will change the timeline (#3, below) to reflect that metric, and change the coloring of agents in the visualization: Refer to for more information on metrics captured by the platform. By default, the loss metric is selected while for Voice tests, the default metric selected is MOS.

   • Loss: a timeline with a flat set of results (showing 0% loss) is important for stability. Agents are colored on a scale from green to red, with green indicating 0% end-to-end loss, and red indicating 100% end-to-end loss.

   • Latency: a timeline with a flat set of results is an indication of a network with low latency. Spikes indicate an increase in the amount of latency in the connection, and should be investigated if they are sustained. Agents are colored on a scale from green to red, with green indicating low latency, and red indicating higher latency.

   • Jitter: A timeline with a flat set of results is an indication of a very stable network. Increases in jitter are bad for networks which are used for streaming, and indicate a variation in latency/response time. Spikes in jitter are usually correlated to increases/dips in latency.

   • Bandwidth: a timeline with flat set of results indicative of stable bandwidth availability. Spikes in the bandwidth graph indicate increase in network traffic load and are bad for streaming networks and bandwidth intensive applications.

   • Mean Opinion Score (MOS): a timeline with a flat set of results indicates stable quality voice call. Agents are colored on a scale from green to red, with green indicating MOS of 5, and red indicating MOS of 1.

   • Discards: a timeline with a flat set of results (showing 0% discards) is important for continuous voice playback. Discard spikes indicate intermittent pauses in voice playback. Agents are colored on a scale from green to red, with green indicating 0% discards, and red indicating 100% discards.

   • Packet Delay Variation (PDV): a flat timeline measures least variation in packets and indicates stable voice call performance. Agents are colored on a scale from green to red, with green indicating least PDV (0 ms), and red indicating max PDV (40 ms).

6. Agents selector – as found elsewhere in ThousandEyes views, this controls which agent is charted on the timeline. When an agent is selected in this control, it will be automatically selected in the timeline.

7. Timeline – shows the lesser of 30 days, or the length of time that the test has been enabled, by charting the average values for the metric selected (see #6). To change the data displayed, either use the 24h (trailing 24 hours) / 7d (trailing 7 days) / 14d (trailing 14 days) links, click the zoom out and latest buttons, or click and highlight the requested area of the chart, and it will re-draw appropriately. Using the lower timeline will allow you to select a specific date or time and zoom in on events.

8. Date/time label – when an instant in time is selected on the timeline, shown by the grey window on the upper timeline, the time and date of the selection are displayed here. By default, the date/time selected in the previous view is selected, but if you enter the page directly from the Views menu, the latest data will be selected by default.

9. Showing - Select data for which agents is visualized in graph and whether to show or hide IP address labels.

10. Grouping dropdown - Configure grouping of objects in visualization:

    • Agents: Group agents based on

      • Agent: Individual path for each agent is visualized.

      • Network: Aggregate paths based on agent network.

      • Network & Location: Aggregate paths based on each combination of an agent's network and geographical location.

      • Location: Aggregate path based on agent's geographic location.

    • Interfaces: Group interfaces by

      • IP Address: Aggregate paths based on an interface IP addresses.

      • Device: Aggregate paths based on device being monitored in ThousandEyes.

      • Network: Aggregate paths based on interface network.

      • Network & Location: Aggregate paths based on each combination of an interface's network and geographical location.

      • Location: Aggregate path based on geographic location of interfaces.

    • Destinations: Grouping destination nodes by

      • IP Addresses: Aggregate paths based on destination IP address.

      • Network: Aggregate paths based on destination's network.

      • Network & Location: Aggregate paths based on each combination of a destination's network and geographical location.

      • Location: Aggregate path based on geographic location destination exists in.

    The path visualization in the snippet below has agents grouped by Location; Interfaces grouped by Network; and Destinations grouped by Network & Location:
11. Highlighting - Configure thresholds to identify:

    • Nodes with Forwarding Loss above specified threshold.

    • Links with Link Delay higher than specified threshold.

12. Selecting - Selecting nodes of interest creates a filter within the Showing link that may be applied to isolate visualization to agents with paths that traverse selected nodes.

    • Individual nodes may be select to create a filter.

    • An auto-filled Info drop-down may be selected to display objects with Alert, Error or distinct characteristics (Info) such as nodes within an MPLS tunnel or links associated with DSCP changes.

      
13. Highlight nodes that match - Allows highlighting nodes by Network, Country, IP address, Prefix or Title based on text entered in search field.

14. Agent and Endpoint complexity controls: This control is also present in the path visualization view, but it effectively allows simplification of the Path Visualization by collapsing routes between various nodes on the Path Visualization. The further apart the controls on the slider are, the less complex the visualization.

    

Interacting with the Path Visualization View

Hover over any agent/node/link on the path visualization to pop up detailed information. Agents show the name, IP address, prefix, network, location and destination IP, as well as metrics statistics (#6 above). Hovering on the nodes gives information on IP address, prefix, network, location and average response time. Links show their respective source and destination IP address, number of routes using that link, MPLS information and average link delay where possible.

Click a node or a link to select it. Multiple objects can be selected at once. Once an object is selected, it will show a moving dashed line surrounding the object. Entire paths can be selected by double-clicking a node or a link. All objects which traverse the object which is double clicked will have selection toggled on or off, based on the selection status of the object when it is selected.

Once one or more objects are selected, the Selected field is populated based on the selection. The field displays X nodes or Y links, as appropriate. Click the expansion icon to display a list of selected objects.

All nodes can be repositioned by clicking and dragging the node to a new location in the Path Visualization. Note that the new placement does not persist when the Path Visualization is redrawn due to a change of round or display options.

Legend

Object Image	What it signifies	Comments
	Agent location	The agent changes color based on the metric selected. The color scale goes from dark green (no loss, latency, jitter, etc.) to red (severe loss, latency, jitter, etc.)
	Enterprise Agent	The color of a Enterprise Agent is double-ringed, and changes color according to the same scale as a ThousandEyes Cloud Agent.
	Identifiable node	A blue node indicates that IP information is available.
	Unidentifiable node	A white node indicates that IP information is not available.
	Node in local network	A dark blue node indicates that a node was identified inside the agent's source network.
	Node in destination network	A node shaded in green indicates a node that was identified as inside the destination network, as specified by the Autonomous System of the customer.
	Highlighted node	A node can be highlighted using the Network, Country, IP address, Prefix or Title selector, while the other nodes are greyed out. This helps to quickly identify nodes based on their information.
	Node with loss	A node circled in red indicates that loss is occurring at that point in the path, meeting the percentage threshold specified by the loss slider.
	Endpoint node	A node circled in black, and showing an IP address beside it, is an endpoint (or target) of the test.
	Selected node	A node circled in a moving blue dashed line indicates that the node is selected.
	Selected link	A link represented as a moving blue dashed line indicates that the link is selected.
	Collapsed path	A path showing a dotted line indicates a path that was simplified for visualization purposes. Expand using the complexity slider, or by clicking the label indicating the number of hops that were collapsed.
	Split path	A path showing a split is an indication that there are multiple routes to the destination. All path visualization is based on a minimum of three tests running from each agent. When a path splits, the thickness of the line representing the link between the nodes shows how many of the tests traversed each link.
	Link with high delay	A red link indicates a delay that meets the threshold specified by the latency slider.
	Loop in the traffic flow	A node with a circle indicates an identified routing loop. To avoid this traffic loop, routing table changes must be applied.
	Unknown number of hops between nodes	A dotted link with a question mark indicates insufficient data to determine the number of hops separating these nodes. Typically indicative of differing numbers of unresponsive nodes (* characters) between responsive nodes, or an indication of path trace being unable to reach the destination when the end-to-end measurement was performed successfully.
	Unable to reach target node	A dotted link with an X symbol indicates a trace that was unable to be completed to the target due to 100% forwarding and 100% end-to-end loss.
	Routing Loop	A red loop encircling a node indicates a shared NAT interface, such as a firewall, router, or load balancing device may contain nodes that are unreachable due to NAT restrictions. This can also indicate a route redundancy. Due to the complexity of monitoring these kinds of interfaces, this can sometimes show up as a false positive.

Path Visualization for Cloud Networks

ThousandEyes offers IP-address enrichment for cloud-based targets in collaboration with AWS. IP addresses can be more accurately identified across the global AWS edge network, increasing overall path visibility. ThousandEyes also offers the following additional data sources to path visibility: AWS IP ranges, AWS Geolocation data, and the Amazon Global Accelerator diagnostic API.

Path visualization for cloud networks is only available in Views 2.0. For more information about Views 2.0, see Getting Started with Views

This enriched path visualization offers the following features:

• Identify the AWS service being used (eg, AWS S3)

• Identify the AWS region being traversed

• Compare observed TCP latency with expected TCP latency to any AWS Global Accelerator network targets

Nodes displaying the Amazon icon indicate when an IP address is enriched. A verified info icon indicates nodes that are enriched with AWS-verified data.

Overview of Enriched Path Visualization

See the sections below for more information about the different Amazon nodes.

Service Nodes

Object Image	What it signifies	Comments
	AWS Cloudfront Node	A node that belongs to the AWS Cloudfront service.
	AWS Route 53 Node	A node that belongs to the AWS Route 53 service.
	AWS Elastic Compute Node	A load balancer, an EIP, or an EC2 instance that belongs to the AWS Elastic Compute service.
	AWS Global Accelerator Node	A node that has been enriched with additional Amazon Global Accelerator information.
	AWS Global Accelerator Node with Latency	A yellow ring surrounding the icon indicates a higher than expected response time, when there is a discrepency between the expected and the observed latency. See below for more information on diagnosing this.

To bring up more information about a reported discrepancy, select a node that is displaying the yellow ring.

Amazon Global Accelerator Node with Latency Info

Clicking on 'View Details' opens a side panel that is titled "Agents with higher than expected response time". This panel shows a list of all agents pointing to the Global Accelerator node that is experiencing a higher response time, compared to what is advertised by the AWS Global Accelerator diagnostics API.

Amazon Global Accelerator Node with Latency Details

Standalone Nodes

Standalone nodes are targets that are owned by Amazon. These targets can be an Amazon Node or an Amazon Border Node. An Amazon Node is fully owned and operated by Amazon and is in the Amazon IP block.

Object Image	What it signifies	Comments
	Amazon Identified Node	A standalone node that is owned by Amazon.
	Amazon Identified Node with Loss	An Amazon-owned standalone node that shows traffic loss.
	Amazon Identified Local Network Node	An Amazon-owned standalone node identified inside the agent's source network.
	Amazon Identified Local Network Node with Loss	An Amazon-owned standalone node identified inside the agent's source network that shows traffic loss.
	Amazon Identified Destination Node	An Amazon-owned standalone node identified inside the destination network, as specified by the configured Autonomous System.
	Amazon Verified Node	This blue checkmark alongside any node icon indicates node information is enhanced from the diagnostic API or border dump data.

Grouped Nodes

An Amazon icons below indicate when all nodes in a group are identified in the AWS network. The number on the bottom half of the icon reports the number of nodes identified within each group.

Object Image	What it signifies	Comments
	Amazon Grouped Interface Nodes	The Amazon grouped interface nodes will be shown when nodes are grouped by network or by network and location.
	Amazon Grouped Destination Nodes	Amazon grouped nodes that were identified inside the destination network, as specified by the configured Autonomous System, will show the Amazon icon when nodes are grouped by network, by network and location, or by IP.
	Amazon Grouped Local Nodes	AWS nodes identified inside the agent's source network will show the Amazon icon when nodes are grouped by network, by network and location, by IP.
	Amazon Grouped Nodes with Loss	A bold red border around the grouped nodes icon indicates that node group is experiencing loss.
	Amazon Grouped Nodes, Selected	A dotted blue border around the grouped nodes icon indicates that node group is currently selected.
	Amazon Grouped Nodes with Loss, Selected	A dotted red border around the node group icon indicates that node group is both currently selected and is experiencing loss.