This blogpost is the fifth in a series of seven, inspired by the most frequently asked questions we receive regarding PROFINET.
It is true that most PROFINET traffic is not routable. This is by design. PROFINET utilizes UDP/IP and TCP/IP where it makes sense. And skips them where it doesn’t. Automation traffic is often little pieces of data. It is bits and bytes being exchanged quickly and deterministically between controllers and devices. The use-cases for routing these little pieces of data across the Internet are uncommon, if nonexistent. There are other protocols better suited at moving information as such, for example OPC UA. Conversely, protocols with large packet sizes, and reliance on UDP/IP or TCP/IP, are not optimized for moving automation traffic deterministically on the factory floor. For installations that do require some basic routing in their PROFINET networks, devices exist to seamlessly couple different subnets together.
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