Operational traffic, such as management plane traffic carrying power consumption metrics from a device in the field, is often inaccessible to a device’s vendor. Techniques are presented herein that support a novel mechanism for encoding power consumption metrics in standard communication protocols such as, for example, domain name system (DNS) requests. Aspects of the presented techniques ensure the atomicity of self-contained messages, as well as the confidentiality and integrity of the metrics that are sent to the corresponding vendors. Further aspects of the presented techniques support selectable levels of anonymity during the exporting of the above-described metrics. For example, selectable Terms and Conditions may not only allow administrators to choose among different levels of anonymity, but also facilitate frictionless operations and automatic configuration during the activation of a license