Abstract: A method is disclosed for providing real-time monitoring of components of a data network to a plurality of users. A manager gathers data regarding said components and analyses said data to determine the status of each component. Each user is associated with a communications address and a subscription period, and is allocated user permissions to access said data and the status of the components. If the subscription period associated with a user has not expired, the user is provided with real-time access to said data and the status of the components in accordance with said user's permissions, and is notified using the communications address associated with said user of any alarm states that occur in components that the user has permission to access. The manager analyses the data without regard to said user permissions.