Getting Started with Global Vantage Points
ThousandEyes' global vantage points are lightweight Linux-based software agents that allow users to run a variety of layered monitoring tests, in order to gain insight into network and application performance and user experience.
ThousandEyes provides three types of vantage points: Cloud Agents, Enterprise Agents, and Endpoint Agents. Although each type of vantage point provides similar capabilities, they each serve different purposes, and exist in different environments.
This section provides a basic introduction into each type of vantage point.
Cloud Agents are globally distributed vantage points deployed in tier 2 and tier 3 data centers, and managed and maintained by the ThousandEyes Operations team. These vantage points are capable of running all routing, DNS, web, and voice layer tests available within the ThousandEyes platform, and are available for use by all ThousandEyes customers on a unit consumption basis.
For more information about the location of ThousandEyes Cloud Agents, see the Cloud Agent World Map.
To get started with ThousandEyes Cloud Agent tests, see Working with Test Settings.
Enterprise Agents are vantage points deployed locally (behind the firewalls of an organization) by customers to monitor their data centers, cloud VPCs/VNETs, branch offices, and other internal or Internet-based network assets. These vantage points are installed as either a package for a supported Linux distribution (see Supported Enterprise Agent Operating Systems), or as a pre-packaged virtual appliance that can be deployed into a number of different hypervisor platforms.
In addition to the active monitoring provided by Cloud Agents, Enterprise Agents provide SNMP-based monitoring, as well as discovery and topological mapping of internal network devices.
To get started with ThousandEyes Enterprise Agents, see Enterprise Agents.
Endpoint Agents are lightweight vantage points deployed by customers on end-user workstations to collect network and application statistics. A browser extension can also be enabled to collect web performance data for websites within configured domains and networks.
ThousandEyes supports installing Endpoint Agents on Mac and Windows devices.
To get started with Endpoint Agents, see Endpoint Agent Installation.