PROFINET has become the leading Industrial Ethernet Standard in all industries of factory and process automation. This globally established and future-oriented technology is supported by many product vendors, thus ensuring long-term availability and investment protection. The flexible architecture of PROFINET with its extensive range of functions enables innovative, flexible and cost-saving automation of production processes not only in plants but also in machines. As technology that is standard in the automotive industry, widely spread in machine building, and well-proven in the food and packaging and logistics industries, as well as recently in process industries, PROFINET has found its way into all application areas.