Understanding Cisco IOS IP SLAs
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 is 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 collects a
unique subset of these performance metrics:
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Because Cisco IOS IP SLAs is SNMP-accessible, it can also be used by performance-monitoring
applications like CiscoWorks Internetwork Performance Monitor (IPM) and other third-party Cisco
partner performance management products. You can find more details about network management
products that use Cisco IOS IP SLAs at this URL:
http://www.cisco.com/go/ipsla
Using IP SLAs can provide these benefits:
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This section includes this information about IP SLAs functionality:
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Using Cisco IOS IP SLAs to Measure Network Performance
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.
a generated packet to the destination device. After the destination device receives the packet, depending
Cisco IE 3000 Switch Software Configuration Guide
31-2
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
Service-level agreement monitoring, measurement, and verification.
Network performance monitoring
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Measures the jitter, latency, or packet loss in the network.
Provides continuous, reliable, and predictable measurements.
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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).
Troubleshooting of network operation 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)
Using Cisco IOS IP SLAs to Measure Network Performance, page 31-2
IP SLAs Responder and IP SLAs Control Protocol, page 31-4
Response Time Computation for IP SLAs, page 31-4
Chapter 31
Figure 31-1
shows how IP SLAs begins when the source device sends
Configuring Cisco IOS IP SLAs Operations
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