Sovereign Monitoring for Legacy Systems: Integrating SNMP & IPMI into Prometheus

The Cloud-Native transformation is in full swing, yet the reality in German data centers often looks different: alongside cutting-edge Kubernetes clusters, dedicated bare-metal servers, core switches, and uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) perform their duties. These components are critical for operations but often escape the modern observability stack as they do not natively deliver Prometheus metrics over HTTP/OpenMetrics.

By 2026, seamless monitoring of these “Non-Cloud-Native” assets is no longer a luxury but a regulatory requirement under frameworks like NIS-2 and DORA. Noticing hardware failures or network bottlenecks only when an application is down jeopardizes digital sovereignty. The solution lies in bridging protocol worlds: by using specialized exporters, we seamlessly integrate SNMP and IPMI data into the ayedo Managed Stack of Prometheus and Grafana.

Bridging Legacy to Cloud-Native

1. SNMP Monitoring Without Management Overhead: The SNMP Exporter

Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is the de facto standard for network components. Since Prometheus is based on the pull principle, the snmp_exporter acts as a proxy. It receives scrape requests from Prometheus, queries the target device via SNMP, and converts the OIDs (Object Identifiers) into the Prometheus data format.

• Strategic Benefit: By defining specific modules in the snmp.yml, we reduce overhead. Instead of querying the entire MIB (Management Information Base) tree, we focus on business-critical metrics like interface traffic, error rates, and CPU load of core switches. This minimizes network load and prevents “Metric Bloat” in the Time Series Database (TSDB).

2. Hardware Health via IPMI: Out-of-Band Management

For the physical integrity of servers, we use the ipmi_exporter. This accesses the Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) of the Baseboard Management Controllers (BMC).

• Technical Precision: The exporter uses tools like freeipmi to collect sensor data for fan speeds, chassis temperatures, and power supply status.
• Business Benefit: By integrating these metrics into Prometheus, predictive maintenance scenarios can be mapped. If the temperature of a RAID controller steadily rises, an alert can be triggered before the hardware physically fails. This ensures high availability of your on-premise infrastructure without reliance on proprietary management suites from hardware manufacturers.

3. Consolidation in Grafana: A Single Pane of Glass

The key advantage of integration is that metric labels (e.g., job="snmp", instance="switch-01") are treated identically to those of your microservices.

• Architectural Pattern: In Grafana, we consolidate data streams. A dashboard now not only shows the HTTP response times of an application but correlates them directly with the packet loss rate of the responsible top-of-rack switch when needed.
• RBAC & Compliance: By integrating Keycloak into the ayedo stack, we ensure that only authorized administrators have access to sensitive hardware metrics, meeting the requirements for Identity & Access Management (IAM) within modern security frameworks.

Conclusion

Integrating legacy hardware into a modern Cloud-Native stack is not a contradiction but a prerequisite for true digital sovereignty. Monitoring your entire infrastructure—from physical switches to Kubernetes pods—with open-source tools like Prometheus and Grafana avoids costly vendor lock-ins and proprietary monitoring silos. ayedo supports you in building this bridge cleanly and transitioning your existing IT into a consistent observability strategy.

Want to put your monitoring infrastructure to the test? Let’s evaluate together how we can integrate your bare-metal assets into your managed Prometheus stack.

FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions About Legacy Monitoring

Why should I store SNMP data in Prometheus instead of a traditional NMS? Storing in Prometheus allows for the correlation of hardware data with application metrics in a single query language (PromQL). Additionally, you benefit from the modern alerting pipeline (Alertmanager) and avoid maintaining redundant monitoring systems.

Does the SNMP export cause high load on network devices? If configured incorrectly (walking the entire MIB tree), yes. However, by using the ayedo-optimized snmp_generator, we create tailored configurations that query only the absolutely necessary OIDs, keeping CPU load on target devices minimal.

How secure is querying via IPMI and SNMP? We strongly recommend using SNMPv3 with encryption (Priv) and authentication (Auth), as well as separating the management network (OOB network) from productive traffic. The IPMI exporter operates within your protected management segment.

Does the ayedo Managed Stack also support UPSs and environmental sensors? Yes. As long as a device offers SNMP, IPMI, or an API, it can be integrated into Prometheus via appropriate exporters. This applies to UPS systems (e.g., APC, Eaton), climate devices, and even physical access control systems.

Can I migrate historical data from legacy systems? Prometheus is optimized for real-time monitoring. For long-term archiving and historical analysis, we rely on solutions like VictoriaMetrics or Thanos, which act as remote-write targets and enable efficient storage over years.