In one particular embodiment, the disclosure is directed to a network management system (102). The network monitoring system includes at least one device definition file (104), a simple network management protocol enabled communications interface, and a data access interface. The definition file includes query instructions (304) associated with a network device. The simple network management protocol enabled communications interface may access the network device using the query instructions and may receive response data from the network device. The data access interface may be configured to provide external access to the response data.