Whew!

Whew!  The 2007 training schedule is finally at an end as we finished our PROFINET one-day training event in Silicon Valley yesterday.  Our last PROFIBUS in Process one-day training event was last week.  After a brief sigh and self-congratulatory beverage consumption, it’s on to 2008.  We have a tough assignment in preparing for next year: all the classes run too long; we need to do some editing, especially since there is more material to add next year.  We’ll review the year’s course evaluations for attendees’ input on what to add and what to cut.

Speaking of course evaluations, yesterday’s were generally complimentary, but we had a really interesting question posed on an evaluation form: “When should I not use PROFINET?”  This stumped me for a while.  My answer: if the product you need is available with a PROFINET interface, use PROFINET.  If the product you need is available with a PROFIBUS interface, use PROFINET, too, if you need the greater bandwidth, larger address space, peer-to-peer integration, or vertical integration that PROFINET adds to PROFIBUS.  You will not find on-off devices for PROFINET for a long time, so in those situations use something like AS-I and again you can also use PROFINET if needed since there is a proxy from AS-I to PROFINET.

My revised formula for computing the right amount of material to bring worked!  Seeing a last minute surge in registrations, we overnighted additional material… which the hotel could not find… until just after the class started.

Next year’s one-day classes are set for month and city and we are now able to confirm some specific dates; watch the home page for updates.  The 2008 Certified Network Engineer classes do have firm dates.  The first PROFINET Certified Network Engineer class has only one seat left.