The present invention provides a method and apparatus for accessing network device data through user profiles. User profiles may be created by network administrators, and the corresponding user profile data may be stored in a central network management system (NMS) database. When a user requests data from a particular network device, the NMS utilizes the user profile data in the central database to access the network device and retrieve the required network device data. Since the user profile data is stored in a central database, the user may log into the NMS from any location and connect to any network device in the network. Further, the user profile data may be used to limit which network devices and which network device configured resources the user may access as well as the user's access level.