In an industrial control setting, different components can have information that can be valuable to various entities, such as other components, technicians, and the like. A decision can be made as to what information should be available to entities and a determination can be made if the information should be published in a directory or be discoverable. Security can be taken into account in determining if information should be published and decision making can employ adaptive learning, such that a publish and/or discovery decision criterion can be modified based on the learning.

The invention relates to a method for accessing a field device in order to simplify and/or improve web access to a field device. The field device is connected to a field bus designed for an Industrial Ethernet protocol or ProfiNET, and the method comprises transmitting a request from a web browser to a web server implemented in the field device, processing the received request in the field device by using a protocol stack of the Industrial Ethernet protocol, the protocol stack being stored in the field device, and transmitting response information from the web server to the web browser. The web server is implemented in the communication chip of the field device and both the communication with the controller and the web server use the same ProfiNET stack. The invention further relates to a field device designed to perform the method, and to a communication chip.

Methods and systems to update information of a device description of a field instrument are described. In one example, a method involves comparing a host revision of the device description executed via a host application to an instrument revision of the device description of the field instrument, generating a character string of update information based on the comparison, the character string containing the update information, and displaying the character string via the host application.

The embodiments described herein include a system, non-transitory tangible computer-readable medium including executable code, and a method. In one embodiment, a non-transitory tangible computer-readable medium including executable code is provided. The executable code includes instructions for providing a batch commissioning system configured to operatively couple at least two field devices to a control system, and for providing a batch decommissioning system configured to operatively uncouple the at least two field devices from the control system. The executable code further includes instructions for providing a graphical user interface (GUI) configured to use the batch commissioning system, the batch decommissioning system, or a combination thereof, to select, on a display, the at least two field devices, and to communicatively interface with the control system to operatively couple, uncouple, or a combination thereof, the at least two field device from the control system.

A method includes identifying device description files corresponding to first and second field devices associated with an industrial process control system. The method also includes comparing multiple field device characteristics of the first and second field devices using the device description files. The method further includes identifying any differences between the device characteristics of the first field device and the device characteristics of the second field device. In addition, the method includes determining a compatibility of the first and second field devices based on any identified differences. The field device characteristics can relate to field device attributes, field device function blocks, and function block parameters of the first and second field devices.