diff --git a/emuvim/cli/monitor.py b/emuvim/cli/monitor.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6885a3c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/emuvim/cli/monitor.py
@@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
+"""
+son-emu network CLI
+(c) 2016 by Manuel Peuster <manuel.peuster@upb.de>
+"""
+
+import argparse
+import pprint
+from tabulate import tabulate
+import zerorpc
+
+
+pp = pprint.PrettyPrinter(indent=4)
+
+class ZeroRpcClient(object):
+
+    def __init__(self):
+        self.c = zerorpc.Client()
+        # TODO connect to DCNetwork API
+        #self.c.connect("tcp://127.0.0.1:4242")  # TODO hard coded for now. we'll change this later
+        self.c.connect("tcp://127.0.0.1:5151")
+        self.cmds = {}
+
+    def execute_command(self, args):
+        if getattr(self, args["command"]) is not None:
+            # call the local method with the same name as the command arg
+            getattr(self, args["command"])(args)
+        else:
+            print "Command not implemented."
+
+    def get_rate(self, args):
+        r = self.c.monitor_get_rate(
+            args.get("vnf_name"),
+            args.get("direction"))
+        pp.pprint(r)
+
+
+parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description='son-emu network')
+parser.add_argument(
+    "command",
+    help="Action to be executed: get_rate")
+parser.add_argument(
+    "--vnf_name", "-vnf", dest="vnf_name",
+    help="vnf name to be monitored")
+parser.add_argument(
+    "--direction", "-d", dest="direction",
+    help="in (ingress rate) or out (egress rate)")
+
+def main(argv):
+    print "This is the son-emu monitor CLI."
+    print "Arguments: %s" % str(argv)
+    args = vars(parser.parse_args(argv))
+    c = ZeroRpcClient()
+    c.execute_command(args)