Real-time device data management for managing access to data in a telecommunication system

A real-time device data management (RTNDD) system for managing access to data describing devices in a telecommunications network. The RTNDD system maintains a partition data structure for each device. The partition data structure has a header section and a port data section. The header section contains data elements describing the device (e.g., number of ports and device type). The port data section has a port data structure for each port of the device that contains data elements describing the port (e.g., current cross-connect and actual port address for device). The RTNDD system also provides a standard interface through which external systems access the device data. The standard interface has functions for reading and writing to the partition data structures. Each read function reads multiple data elements of a header section or a port data structure at a time, and each write function writes a single data element of a device at a time. The standard interface is device independent such that an external system can use the standard interface to access device data for any type of device whose data is stored in a partition data structure.