Many field bus drivers are Ethernet (port) connected, typically using some TCP/IP protocol for transport. For example, the Modbus TCP driver (ModbusTcpNetwork) uses the Modbus TCP protocol—essentially the Modbus protocol “wrapped” in TCP/IP. The SNMP driver (SnmpNetwork) uses SNMP, an application-layer protocol within the TCP/IP protocol suite. These and other Ethernet-connected drivers operate from a single Ethernet port without difficulty, due to the high bandwidth and efficiencies of IEEE 802 network (and TCP/IP) standards.

In addition to JACE platform usage, Ethernet-connected drivers are available for the Supervisor (PC) platform as well, for “direct device integrations.” These are specially-licensed versions of the Supervisor (by default, a Supervisor is licensed only for JACE device communications, via the NiagaraNetwork).