A method of extracting, using SNMP, information associated with a monitored device communicatively coupled to a network, including parsing an access string to determine whether the access string is empty, and to determine whether the access string includes a first predetermined string when the access string is not empty; if the parsing step determines that the access string is not empty and that the access string includes the first predetermined string, accessing the device using a first SNMP access function to obtain a value associated with the type of status information; and if the parsing step determines that the access string is empty or that the access string does not include the first predetermined string, accessing the device using a second SNMP access function to obtain the value associated with the type of status information.