Patent ID: 8363659

Claim:
A method of configuring a process control (PC) system with a plurality of intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) connected to at least one switch of an Ethernet switch-based communication network, where a sender IED is configured to send different messages to different predetermined receiver IEDs, and where a switch of the communication network is configured to forward periodic multicast messages irrespective of the receiver IEDs, the method comprising: retrieving, for the sender IED among the plurality of IEDs and for each message configured to be transmitted by the sender IED and from a standardized configuration representation of the PC system having logical data flow definitions, a Virtual Local Area Network Identifier (VLAN ID); and assigning, for a receiver IED, a respective VLAN ID of each message destined for the receiver IED to an edge port of a switch of the communication network to which the receiver IED is connected.