Modular agent design for field bus management

The remote access to field area networks via the Internet is a suitable way to facilitate process monitoring and field bus management. With the aid of common management standards like the management protocol, SNMP, this approach also becomes field-bus-independent and interoperable with LAN technology. The only part that requires adaptation to the particular field bus under observation is the proxy device or gateway coupling LAN and field bus. To cope with the variety of field bus protocols, however a modular design of the gateway is a prerequisite. In this article we present a survey of possible alternatives along with an actual implementation of a modular SNMP agent.