Applying Internet management standards to fieldbus systems

Abstract

Today each fieldbus system has its own network management. In contrast to this multitude of solutions, we discuss a unified approach in that we integrate a fieldbus into the management framework of the Internet. Such a combination provides access to the fieldbus system from local or global computer networks by the use of common LAN management tools. We present different network management standards and examine their strengths and shortcomings. It turns out that SNMP meets all our requirements. We then analyse different approaches for the actual interconnection and present a solution for the fieldbuses Profibus and P-NET.