topic Modify Generic Cisco Device extension polling frequency in Extensions

Modify Generic Cisco Device extension polling frequency

Gewo — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 07:01:22 GMT

Hello everyone,
i am currently working with a client that requires to limit license usage due to budget issues.
I was looking for a way to change the polling frequency from 1 minute (default) to 5 minutes.

Is there any way to do that in the Generic Cisco Device extension?

p.s. Any tips for lowering metric ingestion & process costs would be amazing.

Thank you very much.

Re: Modify Generic Cisco Device extension polling frequency

p_devulapalli — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 00:11:20 GMT

@Gewo This has been a pain for quite some time but not sure much has changed with the Generic Cisco Device extension.

Alternate options would to create a custom extension based of the Cisco Device extension where you would be able to update the interval (see below) but the drawback would be that you would be missing out on any few functionality that would be added to Generic Cisco Device extension as you would need to update and maintain the custom extension with any changes.

https://docs.dynatrace.com/docs/shortlink/snmp-extensions-reference#interval

For lowering metric ingestion & process costs one option would be to use filters for Interfaces . In a ideal scenario not all interfaces on a switch or a router might need to be monitored . You can limit the monitoring to only critical interfaces like the WAN links or any other critical links only rather than monitoring all the ports . If your interfaces has good descriptions set you can use the ifAlias as well to filter.

Other option would be to enable only the feature sets that you are interested in collecting the data for , do not enable all of the available feature sets

Re: Modify Generic Cisco Device extension polling frequency

sujit_k_singh — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 01:00:46 GMT

Hi @Gewo

Adding to @p_devulapalli's answer , if you go the custom extension route, you'd clone the Generic Cisco Device extension, then edit the extension.yaml and change the interval value under the relevant group(s) from 1 to 5 minutes see: https://docs.dynatrace.com/docs/shortlink/snmp-extensions-reference#interval

A couple more cost levers worth checking:
- Disable any feature sets you're not actively using — only the 'default' feature set is mandatory, everything else is opt-in.
- Check whether any 64-bit interface counters are enabled alongside 32-bit ones that can double up metrics unnecessarily if both are active.

Worth noting: with a custom extension you'll need to manually track and re-apply any updates released for the official Generic Cisco Device extension going forward.

Thanks,

Sujit