When to Use Python Extensions
SNMP extensions are YAML-only. Python extensions let you write code for data sources SNMP can't reach:
Data Source Count in Hub Example Extensions
──────────── ──────────── ──────────────────────────────────────────
SNMP 19 Generic network device, Cisco, Juniper, F5 BIG-IP
Python 33+ Dell iDRAC, HP iLO, FortiGate, Elasticsearch, Google Cloud
JMX 12 Kafka, Cassandra, Tomcat, ActiveMQ
SQL 14 PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle, MSSQL, Snowflake
Prometheus 12 HAProxy, Redis, Istio, Confluent Cloud
WMI 1 .NET extension
💡 Rule of thumb: if the device speaks SNMP, use SNMP (no code). If it has a REST API, use Python. If it exposes JMX MBeans, use JMX. All except Python are declarative YAML — no coding required.
Real Python Extensions in the Hub
Extension Lines Metrics Feature Sets What It Monitors
───────────────────── ────── ─────── ──────────── ──────────────────────
Dell iDRAC v1.4.2 14,823 122 28 Server hardware via Redfish API
FortiGate v1.8.9 2,508 27 5 Firewall via REST API
HP iLO v1.3.9 1,050 30 6 Server hardware via Redfish API
Elasticsearch v2.2.5 3,667 31 26 Search cluster via Management API
Python Extension Package Structure (from Dell iDRAC)
extension.zip
├── extension.yaml # 14,823 lines — metrics, topology, screens
├── activationSchema.json # Monitoring config UI (endpoints, auth, toggles)
├── lib/ # Python wheels
│ ├── dt_extensions_sdk-1.9.7-py3-none-any.whl
│ ├── python_dell_idrac-1.1.0-py3-none-any.whl
│ ├── requests-2.33.1-py3-none-any.whl
│ └── ... (certifi, urllib3, etc.)
├── dashboards/ # Bundled dashboard JSON
├── documents/ # Gen3 dashboard documents
└── openpipeline/ # Metrics pipeline config
The Python SDK
from dynatrace_extension import Extension, Status, StatusValue
class MyExtension(Extension):
def initialize(self):
"""Called once when extension starts"""
self.logger.info("Extension initialized")
def query(self):
"""Called every polling interval"""
# Report a metric
self.report_metric(
key="com.dynatrace.extension.my-api.response_time",
value=42.5,
dimensions={"endpoint": "/api/health"}
)
# Report extension health
self.report_dt_extension_status(
status=Status(StatusValue.OK)
)
def main():
MyExtension().run()
extension.yaml for Python (from FortiGate)
name: com.dynatrace.extension.fortigate
version: 1.8.9
minDynatraceVersion: "1.318.0"
author:
name: Dynatrace
python:
runtime:
module: fortigate # PEP8: lowercase_underscores
version:
min: '3.10'
activation:
remote:
path: activationSchema.json
split: # Multi-endpoint monitoring
propertyPath: /pythonRemote/endpoints
bucketSizePath: /pythonRemote/global_advanced/bucket_size
featureSets:
- featureSet: default
metrics:
- key: com.dynatrace.extension.network_device.cpu_usage
- key: com.dynatrace.extension.network_device.memory_usage
- featureSet: Interfaces
metrics:
- key: fortigate.interface.bytes.in.count
- key: fortigate.interface.speed
- key: fortigate.interface.status
🛠 Key difference from SNMP: Python metrics only declare the key in featureSets — the actual values are reported by your Python code via self.report_metric(). The activation.remote.split enables monitoring multiple devices from one config.
🛠 Try it: Run pip install dt-extensions-sdk → then dt-sdk create my-extension to scaffold a new Python extension project. Open the generated files to see the SDK structure: extension.yaml, __main__.py, and the activation schema.