Patent ID: 8886746

Claim:
An industrial control system comprising: a plurality of industrial control devices configured to control and monitor industrial processes and machinery each industrial control device providing an electronic network interface and generating and providing network readable network diagnostic information including information regarding the current operating state of the network based on symptoms experienced by the network as detected by each industrial control device in transmitted status messages sent from the industrial control devices; a diagnostic management interface providing a human machine interface to an operator; and a network appliance communicating with the diagnostic management interface and providing an electronic network interface communication with the plurality of industrial control devices, the network appliance including an electronic computer executing a stored program to perform the steps of: (1) communicate with the plurality of industrial control devices to collect network readable network diagnostic information generated by the industrial control devices and transmitted from the industrial control devices to the network appliance; (2) translate the collected network diagnostic information into a common format; (3) present an integrated depiction of the network health from the translated collected network diagnostic information; and (4) transmitting the translated collected network diagnostic information to the diagnostic management interface for presentation on the interface.