Abstract: Capturing messages exchanged with field devices in an industrial process without disrupting communication of the messages. A diagnostic driver embedded within a gateway device detects abnormal conditions in connections between the gateway device and the field devices. The diagnostic driver captures messages indicative of the abnormal condition without disrupting message communication. The driver is capable of transmitting captured messages, on demand, to a workstation computing device for diagnosis of the abnormal condition.

Abstract: Capturing messages exchanged with field devices in an industrial process without disrupting communication of the messages. A diagnostic driver embedded within a gateway device detects abnormal conditions in connections between the gateway device and the field devices. The diagnostic driver captures messages indicative of the abnormal condition without disrupting message communication. The driver is capable of transmitting captured messages, on demand, to a workstation computing device for diagnosis of the abnormal condition.

Abstract: Disclosed is a time-synchronization algorithm for use among disparate systems, such as between a controller system and a system having one or more application workstations. In an embodiment of the invention, the workstation system acts as a master timekeeper, ensuring that the time stored in the controller system is in synchrony with the time kept by the workstation system. In a further embodiment of the invention, the time-synchronization system provides staggered time-synchronization signals from each of two or more workstations for receipt by the controller system. The controller system sets its local time by resetting the time for each such incoming synchronization signal. In a further embodiment of the invention, each of two or more workstations employs a technique for evaluating the error accumulated in the controller's time clock and transmits a time-synchronization message in response to finding that the accumulated error has exceeded a predetermined acceptable error threshold.