The MIST provides a mechanism to dynamically determine and characterize the status of distributed objects that communicate in a complex, multiple sub-system, and systems integration environment. At run time, objects that should be participating in the environment are determined. A static database or dynamic learning mechanism is used to characterize the platform's interface graph. The status of event channels and servers, and their corresponding interfaces, are continuously determined and depicted. Status is graphically displayed by using various filtering, a circular interface display, and 2-D graph displays to allow a user to rapidly identify the occurrence, source, and impact of system interface faults.