Apr 22, 2023

Focus business teams on delivering value while reducing incidents with Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application monitoring By Staff Writer on Apr 21, 2023 3:44PM Cisco ThousandEyes monitors SaaS beyond corporate perimeter. Businesses are stepping up their use of SaaS applications that run on external infrastructure, making monitoring beyond the corporate IT perimeter increasingly crucial to delivering high-quality digital experiences. Now IT teams can closely monitor the networks, clouds and internet across which these applications run. Cisco ThousandEyes enables companies to proactively address problems or degradation that may compromise digital experiences and ultimately threaten corporate reputations, productivity and financial performance. Cirrus Networks, a Cisco Gold Partner and Australian IT solutions provider, brings a strategic perspective and deep expertise to deliver market-leading monitoring solutions like Cisco ThousandEyes. “We see businesses today accessing SaaS applications that would otherwise require time and resources to develop and maintain in-house,” explained Phil Geson, Cisco practice lead, Cirrus Networks. “However, while businesses do not own the applications and the infrastructure on which they run, they remain entirely responsible for user experiences. Minimising the risk SaaS presents to corporate environments “Minimising the risk the SaaS model presents to corporate IT architectures is essential,” he added. “Without monitoring beyond the perimeter, IT teams cannot properly identify and address issues that may impact customers, partners, internal team members and other business stakeholders. This impact may be profound with businesses relying on SaaS applications for critical activities such as communication, collaboration, and customer relationship management.” With Cisco ThousandEyes, IT teams can reduce mean-time to recovery by pinpointing issues quickly, identifying responsible providers and collaborating efficiently on shared data, meaning faster troubleshooting and issue resolution. They can also improve the user experience by quickly detecting and resolving SaaS performance issues before they impact user productivity and addressing help desk tickets. Furthermore, IT teams can ensure the success of SaaS migrations by validating performance and success metrics before deployment and uncovering issues that could otherwise lengthen SaaS rollout time. The platform’s features include the following: Complete visibility of application service delivery. Views of business networks and external dependencies. Data-driven insight into how internet health and outages impact application experience for employees and customers. It also provides performance visibility that enables IT teams to isolate fault domains and identify root causes quickly, and analysis allows SaaS performance management and escalation with providers. Cisco ThousandEyes delivers these capabilities through agents deployed across data centres, branch offices, remote users’ devices and cloud regions. Accessing Cisco ThousandEyes as-a-service to realise strategic outcomes By accessing Cisco ThousandEyes as an outcomes-based service from Cirrus Networks, businesses work with a provider determined to help them leverage technology to achieve strategic outcomes, with capabilities spanning advisory and integration, including project management, managed service, and security services. As a Cisco Gold Partner, Cirrus Networks has met Cisco’s stringent technical expertise and customer satisfaction requirements and has access to Cisco products, services, and resources to deliver high-quality solutions. “Our team includes Cisco Certified Internetwork Experts qualified as leaders in networking capability,” said Geson. “We have also built a compelling track record working with blue-chip companies in the healthcare and resources sectors and top-tier government agencies. With our focus on Australia, we have acquired a deep understanding of the industries, market, and regulatory environment in which our clients operate.” In addition, by taking the outcomes-based, as-a-service approach to deliver Cisco ThousandEyes offered by Cirrus Networks, businesses can focus their resources and expertise on what they do best rather than assigning skilled people to address technology challenges such as integration and management, including patching and updating. Cirrus Networks also offers a range of payment options to accommodate customer requirements for software such as ThousandEyes to help forecast business budgets. Cirrus Networks supports a range of customer use cases with Cisco ThousandEyes, including running tests to determine the experience of the Microsoft 365 collaboration suite from within a client’s office to Microsoft cloud infrastructure. This capability also extends to other common platforms such as Webex and Salesforce. Furthermore, Cirrus Networks supports ‘outside-in’ scenarios whereby a business such as a private health insurer may run an application on mobile devices and want to understand the experiences of its customers interacting with its infrastructure services. Finally, Cirrus Networks may test an employee’s SaaS application experience, regardless of location, using an agent on the employee’s device. With Cisco ThousandEyes delivered as a service by Cirrus Networks, businesses can extend monitoring to SaaS application environments outside the corporate perimeter, helping realise the full potential of these applications in delivering efficiencies, creating new opportunities, and enabling digital transformation. If you want to see the benefits Cisco ThousandEyes can make for your business, please get in touch with Phil Geson via email at phil.geson@cirrusnetworks.com.au to organise a live demonstration.