1.1 General The Fieldbus Application Layer (FAL) provides user programs with a means to access the fieldbus communication environment. In this respect, the FAL can be viewed as a “window between corresponding application programs.” This standard provides common elements for basic time-critical and non-time-critical messaging communications between application programs in an automation environment and material specific to Type 12 fieldbus. The term “time-critical” is used to represent the presence of a time-window, within which one or more specified actions are required to be completed with some defined level of certainty. Failure to complete specified actions within the time window risks failure of the applications requesting the actions, with attendant risk to equipment, plant and possibly human life. This standard defines in an abstract way the externally visible behavior provided by the different Types of the fieldbus Application Layer in terms of a) the abstract syntax defining the application layer protocol data units conveyed between communicating application entities, b) the transfer syntax defining the application layer protocol data units conveyed between communicating application entities, c) the application context state machine defining the application service behavior visible between communicating application entities; and d) the application relationship state machines defining the communication behavior visible between communicating application entities; and. The purpose of this standard is to define the protocol provided to a) define the wire-representation of the service primitives defined in IEC 61158-5-12, and b) define the externally visible behavior associated with their transfer. This standard specifies the protocol of the IEC fieldbus Application Layer, in conformance with the OSI Basic Reference Model (ISO/IEC 7498) and the OSI Application Layer Structure (ISO/IEC 9545). FAL services and protocols are provided by FAL application-entities (AE) contained within the application processes. The FAL AE is composed of a set of object-oriented Application Service Elements (ASEs) and a Layer Management Entity (LME) that manages the AE. The ASEs provide communication services that operate on a set of related application process object (APO) classes. One of the FAL ASEs is a management ASE that provides a common set of services for the management of the instances of FAL classes. Although these services specify, from the perspective of applications, how request and responses are issued and delivered, they do not include a specification of what the requesting and responding applications are to do with them. That is, the behavioral aspects of the applications are not specified; only a definition of what requests and responses they can send/receive is specified. This permits greater flexibility to the FAL users in standardizing such object behavior. In addition to these services, some supporting services are also defined in this standard to provide access to the FAL to control certain aspects of its operation. 1.2 Specifications The principal objective of this standard is to specify the syntax and behavior of the application layer protocol that conveys the application layer services defined in IEC 61158-5-12. A secondary objective is to provide migration paths from previously-existing industrial communications protocols. It is this latter objective which gives rise to the diversity of protocols standardized in subparts of IEC 61158-6. 1.3 Conformance This standard does not specify individual implementations or products, nor does it constrain the implementations of application layer entities within industrial automation systems. There is no conformance of equipment to the application layer service definition standard. Instead, conformance is achieved through implementation of this application layer protocol specification.