Explanation
IP SLAs allows Cisco customers to analyze IP service levels for IP applications and services, to increase productivity, to lower operational costs, and to reduce the frequency of network outages. IP SLAs uses active traffic monitoring-the generation of traffic in a continuous, reliable, and predictable manner-for measuring network performance.
Being Layer-2 transport independent, IP SLAs can be configured end-to-end over disparate networks to best reflect the metrics that an end-user is likely to experience.
Reference: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/ios-xml/ios/ipsla/configuration/15-mt/sla-15- mt-book/sla_overview.html