was the fact that the different levels
in the automation pyramid are controlled by mutually largely
incompatible networking concepts: fieldbus systems and mostly
Ethernet- and IP-based LANs. These integration problems were
(and still are) one of the main arguments used to promote
Ethernet on the field level. Using the same network technology
as in the office world, both automation and office domain can, in
principle, be connected to one single enterprise network. Ethernet
is of course no cure-all; it is not much more than a network
basis for data exchange. As such, it is an important step toward
horizontal integration, but this alone is not sufficient. More
relevant for integration, notably in the vertical direction, is the
wide usage of the IP suite in industrial Ethernet approaches.
It is this non-Ethernet-specific property that actually alleviates
data exchange across the levels of the automation pyramid and
makes the pyramid structure flatter and easier to handle