IP SLA (Cisco)

IP SLA (Internet protocol service level agreement) is a feature of the Cisco Internetwork Operating System (Cisco IOS) that allows an IT professional to collect information about network performance in real time.

Cisco IOS IP SLAs continuously collect data about such things as Response times, latency, jitter and packet loss. This not only provides the network administrator with baseline information about network performance, it also helps the administrator to verify Quality of Service (QoS) levels and quickly identify the root of a problem if performance levels drop. When integrated with a network management system (NMS), visual alerts of threshold violations can be captured in real-time. 

IP SLAs are especially useful for wide area networks (WANs) that connect multiple geographies and needs to be monitored from one central location.