Abstract: In a cellular telephone network or other communication network, there is a need to monitor the status and health of various nodes of the network in real-time. The techniques disclosed herein use a real-time link to the network node to obtain a data stream of messages for processing. In one example, a modified Telnet Terminal Program connects to a system element, the user logs in to the system element, and the Program causes the messages from the element's local log file to stream past the Telnet screen as they are produced. The streaming log messages also are parsed and entered into a database as they are produced, providing a real-time capture of the streaming data into a database form. Graphs, for example, can be set to update themselves and thereby display real-time information. The user can interact with a graph to select a graph point and see the system element message(s) that generated the graph point.