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As manufacturing industries add increasingly sophisticated instrumentation from multiple vendors to the plant floor, there is a growing challenge to share networked data and device resources for cost effective process monitor, control, and corporate information management systems. The various operating systems used around the plant floor, management, and corporate offices may include Microsoft Windows, UNIX platforms including Linux, Macintosh clients, and various real-time operating systems (RTOS) within embedded devices, smart sensors, and instruments. This paper discusses the advantages of using Microsoft's CIFS client/server protocol as a simple and cost effective technique for device management and file sharing within a plant’s diverse manufacturing network while integrating all these devices, computers, and operating systems. CIFS can also support remote printer sharing and improve OPC device management from embedded devices making it a useful plug-in to existing plant floor network investments. CIFS is easy to implement by instrument manufactures and IT teams because it follows the existing TCP/IP network file sharing standard available for connectivity on all Microsoft Windows platforms. The CIFS client/server protocol is readily available commercially as a software component for most UNIX servers, instruments, smart sensors, and embedded devices. CIFS has recently emerged as a cost effective commercial component on a diverse number of operating systems because of the adoption and growth of Ethernet based hardware.

After a discussion of how CIFS works on Windows, Linux, and a typical embedded RTOS, a practical example is presented based on a TCP/IP network of CIFS enabled instruments using VxWorks embedded operating system connected to a Windows information management system for process monitor, calibration, and control in a dairy products manufacturing plant.

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