Abstract: A monitoring computer automatically identifies and communicates with one or more network-based devices to determine metric information collected and stored by those devices. The monitoring computer performs these functions even in cases where it does not know how to retrieve the information it needs to monitor a given network device, or even initially communicate with the device. Particularly, the monitoring computer autonomously determines the information needed to communicate with the devices and retrieve measurement data collected by those devices, and then uses that information and data to identify the device and subsequently configure itself to monitor that device.