NDM Profiles

Docs > Network Monitoring > Network Device Monitoring > NDM Profiles

Overview

Network Device Monitoring uses profiles to tell the Datadog Agent the metrics and associated tags to collect. A profile is a collection of associated with a device.

Configuration

You can enable device profiles in Datadog using either the recommended GUI-based (SNMP Profile Manager) workflow, or through an advanced configuration-based setup:

SNMP Profile Manager (recommended)

Guided UI to customize metrics collected from network devices directly from the Network Device Monitoring Configuration page.
Removes the need to source OIDs from vendor documentation by automatically recommending a list of relevant, human-readable metrics.
Requires no manual configuration with .yaml files.
Apply changes at scale to all Agents in a single click with Remote Configuration.

Advanced Setup

Create and enable custom profiles manually with .yaml files, specifying the device metrics and tags.
Ideal for large or dynamic environments.

By default, all profiles in the Agent configuration directory are loaded. To customize the specific profiles for collection, explicitly reference them by filename under definition_file, or provide an inline list under definition. Any of the Datadog profiles can be listed by name. Additional custom profiles can be referenced by the file path in the config, or placed in the configuration directory.

Note: The generic profile is generic-device.yaml, which supports routers, switches, and other devices.

Terms and concepts

sysOID mapped devices

Profiles allow Network Device Monitoring to reuse metric definitions across several device types or instances. Profiles define which metrics to collect and how to transform them into Datadog metrics. Each profile is expected to monitor a class of similar devices from the same vendor. They are automatically used by the Datadog Agent by comparing the sysObjectIds of the network device with the ones defined in the profile file.

The Datadog Agent provides out-of-the-box profiles in the conf.d/snmp.d/default_profiles directory. This directory is cleaned and reset upon Agent upgrades so do not save anything there. You can write your own custom profiles and extend existing ones by putting files in the conf.d/snmp.d/profiles directory.

The following example profile is used on any network device whose sysobjectid either is 1.3.6.1.4.1.232.9.4.10 or starts with 1.3.6.1.4.1.232.9.4.2.:

sysobjectid:
 - 1.3.6.1.4.1.232.9.4.10
 - 1.3.6.1.4.1.232.9.4.2.*

metrics:
  - MIB: CPQHLTH-MIB
    symbol:
      OID: 1.3.6.1.4.1.232.6.2.8.1.0
      name: cpqHeSysUtilLifeTime

If you need different metrics for network devices that share the same sysobjectid, you can write profiles without any sysobjectid, and configure the profile option in the SNMP configuration.

instances:
   - ip_address: 192.168.34.10
     profile: my-profile1
   - ip_address: 192.168.34.11
     profile: my-profile2
   - ip_address: 192.168.34.13
     # For this device, the Agent will fetch the sysObjectID of the device and use the closest match

Metric definition by profile

Profiles can be used interchangeably, meaning devices that share MIB dependencies can reuse the same profiles. For example, the Cisco c3850 profile can be used across many Cisco switches.

For more Datadog provided profiles, see the GitHub repository.

Metadata definition by profile

In the profiles’s metadata section, you can define where and how metadata is collected. Values can be static or come from an OID value. See the DeviceMetadata section for the supported fields.

With Datadog Agent version 7.52 and later, there is a device_type field for device metadata. This can be set manually in the profile and can be used to filter on specific types of devices. Accepted values include: