Patent ID: 8719319

Claim:
A network monitoring system for monitoring a remote network device, the network monitoring system comprising: at least one management information base (MIB) file; at least one device definition file separate and distinct from the at least one MIB file, the at least one device definition file including simple network management protocol (SNMP) query instructions based upon information included within the at least one MIB file, the information being descriptive of the remote network device, the SNMP query instructions including at least one instruction for accessing supplemental data in the at least one device definition file, the supplemental data including at least one description for display in a user interface and at least one value for interpreting data received from the remote network device, the at least one description and the at least one value being associated with at least one object identification within the information; and a processor subsystem configured to implement: an SNMP enabled communications interface to: access the remote network device using the SNMP query instructions; receive response data associated with the SNMP query instructions from the remote network device, the response data including a symbolic name of environmental data included in the response data, the environmental data including a value representative of an environmental parameter, the symbolic name being in accord with a MIB syntax standard; replace the symbolic name in the response data with the at least one description from the supplemental data in the at least one device definition file; and interpret the value representative of the environmental parameter using the at least one value for interpreting data; and a data access interface configured to provide external access to the response data.