NETWORK SCANNING AND MANAGEMENT IN A DEVICE TYPE MANAGER OF TYPE DEVICE

A method of communicating with a device using a Field Device Tool (FDT) framework, such that the device operates in a process control environment and is communicatively coupled to a communication link, includes generating an instance of a scan capable device type manager (DTM) of type device that represents the device in the FDT framework, communicatively connecting the instance of the scan capable DTM to a communication channel which corresponds to the communication link, scanning the communication link to discover the device using the instance of the scan capable DTM, and obtaining an address of the discovered device at the scan capable DTM.