In one embodiment, a state tracking engine (STE) defines one or more classes of elements that can be tracked in a network. A set of elements to track is determined from the one or more classes, and the set of elements is tracked in the network. Access to the tracked set of elements then provided via one or more corresponding application programming interfaces (APIs). In another embodiment, a metric computation engine (MCE) defines one or more network metrics to be tracked in the network. One or more tracked elements are received from the STE. The one or more network metrics are tracked in the network based on the received one or more tracked elements. Access to the tracked network metrics is then provided via one or more corresponding APIs.