1. A method of operating a client network device, the client network device comprising a command line interface (CLI)-based application program and a program routine execution layer external to the CLI-based application program, the program routine execution layer being configured to provide an interface between the CLI-based application program and a remote network device, the method comprising operating the program routine execution layer: to receive at least one predefined CLI-based command selected by the CLI-based application program, the predefined CLI-based command defined externally to the CLI-based application program; to transmit the received at least one predefined CLI-based command to the remote network device to obtain data corresponding to the remote network device; to receive a CLI-based response from the remote network device wherein the CLI-based response includes the data corresponding to the remote network device; to extract a subset of the received data from the CLI-based response based on predetermined instructions; and to reconfigure the extracted subset of data into a predetermined format that enables the CLI-based application program to query the reconfigured subset of data to obtain the data corresponding to the remote network device, the predetermined format comprising at least one identifier, a map entry corresponding to each identifier, and at least one value corresponding to each identifier.