Although a lot of file transfer is now handled using HTTP, FTP is still commonly used to transfer files behind the scenes for other applications -- e.g., hidden behind the user interfaces of banking, a service that helps build a website, such as Wix or SquareSpace, or other services.
Yes, there is a utility to read log files named LogRead. LogRead is a GUI utility to read, query, sort, merge and translate log files from all Progress components (e.g. AdminServer, AppServer, Messenger). It is provided as a diagnostic utility to assist in the analysis of log files. LogRead 1.1 is now available as source and can be downloaded from:
Grok is currently the best way in logstash to parse crappy unstructured log data into something structured and queryable. This tool is perfect for syslog logs, apache and other webserver logs, mysql logs, and in general, any log format that is generally written for humans and not computer consumption.