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Diagnostics

As well as being the most comprehensive, all-encompassing automation network, PROFINET also provides the fastest, most thorough diagnostics. There is virtually no part of your network PROFINET you can't reach and examine quickly and accurately. In fact, in the time it takes you to read this ad, PROFINET can diagnose more than 1,475,000 devices. Yes, PROFINET can save time and money on installation, but it can save even more through faster troubleshooting and keeping your plant healthy.

PROFINET diagnostics are structured hierarchically, starting with the device information and moving down the ladder to module and channel diagnosis. Additionally network and system status are available.

At the device level, each PROFINET node has its own graphical way of alerting you to problems. The status of the device and its data is transmitted cyclically with the process data. In case of a fault the station name, slot, channel, channel type and information about the error itself can be accessed, so you'll always be on top of device faults. In the picture shown above, you can see the ease with which a faulty module can be quickly identified.

This all comes free with PROFINET! Also free, are all the well-proven and easy-to-use Ethernet-based protocols (they are really management tools!) that IT departments have been using for years. These include:

  • DHCP - an automatic address resolution protocol that eliminates IP addressing issues

  • SNMP - Simple Network Management Protocol, perhaps the most widely used of all the Ethernet protocols for diagnostics. Using only 9 commands it monitors network devices and can be a great help in diagnosing faults. PROFINET uses standard 'MIBs' (Management Information Database), containing information about device name, IP address, location, status and statistics - and offers to have additional MIBs which can provide vendor specific diagnostic information.

  • HTTP - the web protocol that we all use daily in our browsers. It may not sound like an engineering protocol but with the right web servers embedded in devices and systems it can look inside any of them, and do it from anywhere on the network.

  • LLDP - one you may not have heard of (and may never see, although it's usually there). A discovery protocol that allows devices to be identified automatically and provide information about network topology. In PROFINET LLDP goes hand in hand with SNMP, which is used to access the information gathered by LLDP.

Also free are valuable tools that can be downloaded over the Web, such as Ethereal, now officially known as Wireshark. Why re-invent the wheel if someone already has the perfect answer? That's what's happened with Wireshark, which supports PROFINET fully. Network traffic can be monitored easily with Wireshark … and it does not need years of training!

Need more convincing about the rich opportunities offered by PROFINET? Well, how's this? PROFINET doesn't try to eliminate the competition. Instead, it's happy integrating almost any other kind of legacy communications network including fieldbuses like DeviceNet and PROFIBUS. This makes your migration path to Industrial Ethernet even easier and faster. It also protects existing investments and retains current skills and equipment. Check out this page next.