IP Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

Cisco IOS IP Service Level Agreements (SLAs) allow users to monitor network performance between Cisco routers or from either a Cisco router to a remote IP device. Cisco IOS IP SLA has been the most popular way to measure performance statistics (i.e: latency, jitter, packet loss and MOS). Cisco IOS IP SLAs Responder is a component embedded in the destination Cisco router whose functionality is to respond to Cisco IOS IP SLAs request packets. The responder adds timestamps to the echoed packets to allow unidirectional packet loss, latency, and jitter measurements to a Cisco device. The accuracy of the measurements is improved significantly if the responder is used.

Cisco IOS IP SLAs Benefits
1. Measure end-to-end IP layer network
2. Deploy new applications and services with complete confidence
3. Verify and monitor quality of service (QoS) and differentiated services.
4. Increase end user confidence and satisfaction
5. Implement SLA measurement metrics
6. Notify users about network issues proactively
7. Measure network performance continuously, reliably, and predictably

Reference
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/technologies/tk648/tk362/tk920/technologies_white_paper09186a00802d5efe.html