Cisco buys ThousandEyes, strengthening network portfolio

Cisco is eyeing up network intelligence company ThousandEyes for its latest acquisition, building on Cisco's cloud-based network and application performance portfolio.

ThousandEyes, headquartered in the United States, operates globally with support of major cloud platforms such as Alibaba Cloud, AWS, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure.

The ThousandEyes internet and cloud intelligence platform delivers insights into the delivery of applications and services through the internet.

Cisco states that the last few years have been filled with rapid cloud adoption, widespread Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application use and increasing reliance on the internet. This makes it difficult for IT teams to predict, visualise, and control operational behaviour.

Cisco believes that by marrying its own network and application performance portfolio with ThousandEyes' internet visibility capabilities, customers will now have a comprehensive view into application and service delivery through the internet.

Cisco will incorporate ThousandEyes' capabilities across Cisco's core Enterprise Networking and Cloud, and AppDynamics portfolios to enhance visibility across the enterprise, internet and the cloud.

ThousandEyes will join Cisco's newly formed networking services business unit, reporting to Cisco enterprise networking and cloud SVP and general manager, Todd Nightingale.

ThousandEyes CEO and co-founder Mohit Lad will take on the role of GM of ThousandEyes under the new business unit. ThousandEyes cofounder and CTO Ricardo Oliveira will continue to drive ThousandEyes product vision and innovation strategy.

"I'm excited to welcome the ThousandEyes team to Cisco," says Nightingale.

"The combination of Cisco and ThousandEyes will enable deeper and broader visibility to pinpoint deficiencies and improve the network and application performance across all networks. This will give customers end-to-end visibility when accessing cloud applications, and Internet Intelligence will improve networking reliability and the overall application experience.

ThousandEyes' Mohit Lad says this is not an exit for the company – it's actually about doing more faster and creating a legacy for the company.

"It's a great outcome no doubt for employees and investors, but we also made this decision knowing this would be a great outcome for our customers—whose best interests have always been at the center of every decision we make at ThousandEyes.

"We want our customers to feel like ThousandEyes employees are an extension of their team, and are obsessed with making them successful. That culture of our commitment to innovate and continue to support every customer with the same fervour will stay the same as it has from day one.

Lad says that ThousandEyes will remain vendor-agnostic to underlying implementations.

The acquisition is expected to close before the end of Cisco's Q1 FY21.