When designing an object-independent trace access interface, we have to consider the measured traces, as this is what the analysis system sees of the monitored system. All the differences in the object systems, operating systems or applications monitored have an effect on the structure, format, representation and meaning of the measured traces. In order to abstract from these properties we first developed a general logical structure for all the different formats of traces. This logical structure can then be used to define a standardized access method to the event traces.