Cisco IOS IP SLAs send data across the network to measure performance between multiple network locations or across multiple network paths. They simulate network data and IP services and collect network performance information in real time. Cisco IOS IP SLAs generate and analyze traffic either between Cisco IOS devices or from a Cisco IOS device to a remote IP device such as a network application server. Measurements provided by the various Cisco IOS IP SLA operations can be used for troubleshooting, for problem analysis, and for designing network topologies.

Depending on the specific Cisco IOS IP SLA operations, various network performance statistics are monitored within the Cisco device and stored in both command-line interface (CLI) and Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) MIBs. IP SLA packets have configurable IP and application layer options such as source and destination IP address, User Datagram Protocol (UDP)/TCP port numbers, a type of service (ToS) byte (including Differentiated Services Code Point [DSCP] and IP Prefix bits), Virtual Private Network (VPN) routing/forwarding instance (VRF), and URL web address.

Because Cisco IP SLAs are Layer 2 transport independent, you can configure end-to-end operations over disparate networks to best reflect the metrics that an end user is likely to experience. IP SLAs collect and analyze the following performance metrics:

• Delay (both round-trip and one-way)

• Jitter (directional)

• Packet loss (directional)

• Packet sequencing (packet ordering)

• Path (per hop)

• Connectivity (directional)

• Server or website download time

Because Cisco IOS IP SLAs is SNMP-accessible, it can also be used by performance-monitoring applications like Cisco Prime Internetwork Performance Monitor (IPM) and other third-party Cisco partner performance management products.

Using IP SLAs can provide the following benefits:

• Service-level agreement monitoring, measurement, and verification.

• Network performance monitoring

  • Measurement of jitter, latency, or packet loss in the network.

  • Continuous, reliable, and predictable measurements.

• IP service network health assessment to verify that the existing QoS is sufficient for new IP services.

• Edge-to-edge network availability monitoring for proactive verification and connectivity testing of network resources (for example, shows the network availability of an NFS server used to store business critical data from a remote site).

• Network operation troubleshooting by providing consistent, reliable measurement that immediately identifies problems and saves troubleshooting time.

• Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) performance monitoring and network verification (if the switch supports MPLS).

You can use IP SLAs to monitor the performance between any area in the network—core, distribution, and edge—without deploying a physical probe. It uses generated traffic to measure network performance between two networking devices.

The IP SLA responder is a component embedded in the destination Cisco device that allows the system to anticipate and respond to IP SLA request packets. The responder provides accurate measurements without the need for dedicated probes. The responder uses the Cisco IOS IP SLA Control Protocol to provide a mechanism through which it can be notified on which port it should listen and respond.

Note	The IP SLA responder can be a Cisco IOS Layer 2, responder-configurable switch. The responder does not need to support full IP SLA functionality.

The following figure shows where the Cisco IOS IP SLA responder fits in the IP network. The responder listens on a specific port for control protocol messages sent by an IP SLA operation. Upon receipt of the control message, it enables the specified UDP or TCP port for the specified duration. During this time, the responder accepts the requests and responds to them. It disables the port after it responds to the IP SLA packet, or when the specified time expires. MD5 authentication for control messages is available for added security.

You do not need to enable the responder on the destination device for all IP SLA operations. For example, a responder is not required for services that are already provided by the destination router (such as Telnet or HTTP).

Switches, controllers, and routers can take tens of milliseconds to process incoming packets due to other high priority processes. This delay affects the response times because the test-packet reply might be in a queue while waiting to be processed. In this situation, the response times would not accurately represent true network delays. IP SLAs minimize these processing delays on the source device as well as on the target device (if the responder is being used) to determine true round-trip times. IP SLA test packets use time stamping to minimize the processing delays.

When the IP SLA responder is enabled, it allows the target device to take time stamps when the packet arrives on the interface at interrupt level and again just as it is leaving, eliminating the processing time. This time stamping is made with a granularity of sub-milliseconds (ms).

An additional benefit of the two time stamps at the target device is the ability to track one-way delay, jitter, and directional packet loss. Because much network behavior is asynchronous, it is critical to have these statistics. However, to capture one-way delay measurements, you must configure both the source router and target router with Network Time Protocol (NTP) so that the source and target are synchronized to the same clock source. One-way jitter measurements do not require clock synchronization.

This section does not include configuration information for all available operations as the configuration information details are included in the Cisco IOS IP SLAs Configuration Guide. It does include several operations as examples, including configuring the responder, configuring a UDP jitter operation, which requires a responder, and configuring an ICMP echo operation, which does not require a responder. For details about configuring other operations, see the Cisco IOS IP SLAs Configuration Guide.