Patent ID: 8019798

Claim:
A method of generating a device definition file, the method comprising: determining an object identification associated with a management information base of a network device; generating query instructions to retrieve response data from the network device using a protocol, the query instructions associated with the object identification, the protocol supporting transfer of data in a plurality of native formats, the response data having a format from the plurality of native formats; adding, to the query instructions, supplemental data including a description of the response data configured for display in a graphical user-interface and not included in the response data, the supplemental data associated with the object identification; providing a unit conversion code to the query instructions, the unit conversion code associated with the object identification and configured to convert the response data to a format other than a format from the plurality of native formats; determining at least one threshold value to compare against at least one portion of the response data, the threshold value being associated with an alarm that is triggered where the at least one portion transgresses the threshold value; and saving the query instructions, the supplemental data, the at least one threshold value and the unit conversion code in the device definition file.