# Elastic Synthetics not meant for IT cases?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elastic-synthetics-not-meant-for-it-cases/371032>\
**Category:** Synthetics\
**Created:** [November 25, 2024, 3:38pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elastic-synthetics-not-meant-for-it-cases/371032 "2024-11-25T15:38:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![erikg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/91b2a8/32.png) [@erikg](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/erikg)\
**Post date:** [November 25, 2024, 3:38pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elastic-synthetics-not-meant-for-it-cases/371032/1 "2024-11-25T15:38:54Z")

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Awhile back I attended an Elastic Synthetics webinar, they said that Elastic Synthetics is a clear replacement to other tools like Cisco Thousand Eyes.

After exploring more of Elastic Synthetics, it appears it mainly focuses on the application layer and doesn't delve as deeply into underlying network infrastructure.

I think my question is this tool meant more for application developers? I would expect that a tool like Elastic Synthetics would also provide network analysis/monitoring like other "Synthetics" tools.

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**Author:** ![jkambic](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/jkambic/32/53306_2.png) [@jkambic](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/jkambic)\
**Post date:** [November 25, 2024, 4:38pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elastic-synthetics-not-meant-for-it-cases/371032/2 "2024-11-25T16:38:12Z")

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Hi @erikg, thanks for your interest in Synthetics!

It is true that Elastic's Synthetics product offers a lot of in-depth analysis for website performance tracking.

In addition to that, we also support HTML/TCP/ICMP ["lightweight" pings](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/observability/current/synthetics-lightweight.html) that will provide detailed event-level metrics for each of those. If monitoring outside the application layer is your interest, TCP/ICMP might be of interest to you.

If we can answer any further questions about the product or its capabilities please feel free to ask here.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![erikg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/91b2a8/32.png) [@erikg](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/erikg)\
**Post date:** [November 25, 2024, 5:14pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elastic-synthetics-not-meant-for-it-cases/371032/3 "2024-11-25T17:14:37Z")

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Hello @jkambic , thanks for your response.  
Yes, I feel like synthetics product is limited within its ICMP/TCP functionality.

ICMP would be able to determine the reachability of an endpoint or host.

The issue I have noticed is that it doesn't provide as much valuable insight especially when attempting to measure the performance of a network based of ICMP monitor. Its currently missing information like packet stats. Take Grafana for example:  
[Ping check | Grafana Cloud documentation](https://grafana.com/docs/grafana-cloud/testing/synthetic-monitoring/create-checks/checks/ping/)

There is also no traceroute ability, which is important to determine how data on the internet travels from its source to its destination. This is available in other synthetic tools like Grafana & Thousand Eyes  
[How traceroute in the Synthetic Monitoring plugin for Grafana Cloud helps network troubleshooting | Grafana Labs](https://grafana.com/blog/2022/01/31/how-traceroute-in-the-synthetic-monitoring-plugin-for-grafana-cloud-helps-network-troubleshooting/)  
[Network and Application Synthetics](https://www.thousandeyes.com/product/network-application-synthetics)