As connections between plant floor automation equipment and enterprise-level business systems become the norm for the manufacturing industry (AutomationWorld, 2013), combining the expertise of automation engineers with that of IT engineers is the key to achieving an information-driven plant that can respond quickly to production errors, and thus minimize adverse impact on the business (Intel, The Factory of Tomorrow Will Be Smart). In this white paper, Moxa shows how gateways can integrate fieldbus devices with PROFINET, the most popular Ethernet-based protocol, as well as leverage IT knowledge to optimize the performance of this connectivity.