Siemens WinCC Flexible Routing Question

We have a fairly large distributed system which are all connected and accessable via the ethernet CP-343-1 modules.
All field devices are connected to the individual PLC CPUs via ProfiBus, (TP and MP HMIs, Masterdrives and Micromasters, Remote I/O).

What I want to know, can WinCC Flex handle the HMI programming with ethernet to profibus network routing? Or, will it in the future?
It, suprisingly, doesn't seem to work. According to Siemens you can program from the MPI or Profibus though they didn't seem to know if ethernet routing capability works themselves.
I use Drive Basic ES to parameterize and monitor drives every day with the ethernet to profibus/MPI routing, (well over 350+ drives alone), I can't believe that the same functionality doesn't exist with WinCC Flex.
How else can you manage a distributed system?

• Step 7 5.3 Professional SR3
• WinCC Flex 2005
• Drive Basic ES
• Lots of other add-ins.

I havent tried it myself, but Win CC Flex should support routing.
The requirement is that everything is integrated in STEP7.

Not sure how exactly it is done, but when you specify the online connection in Win CC Flex you should be able to select the relevant device from a list of reachable devices.
I think that you will have to download new HW configs to the relevant CPUs that do the routing as they will have to have their routing tables modified. Could be that you have to do this from NetPro after a "compile all".

Lastly, are you after accessing the drives "directly" from Win CC Flex ? If so, you have a problem as the max amount of connections that Win CC Flex supports is 8.
Probably you mean to access them "indirectly" via the PLCs and their preconfigured program blocks. In that case you dont need routing (if the PLCs can be accessed without routing), so I am a little confused to why you actually need routing.

I think that if you connect from Drive ES to the drives to view or alter parameters, then you do need routing.

By the way, I am considering to get Drive ES Basic myself. What will it do for me exactly ?

Let me clarify,

In my system(s) all drives and HMI panels are connected to the PLCs on Profibus. The PLCs are networked via Ethernet.
Drive ES Basic and WinCC Flex are integrated into Step7


I use Drive ES Basic to parameterize, monitor and troubleshoot drives that are connected to a PLC via a Profibus network within Step7. Basically it allows Drive Monitor to run within Step7 and "shells out", so to speak, when invoked. It does support routing from ethernet (CP-343) to Profibus or others.

I plan to use WinCC Flex for remote programming of HMI screens. It will be much easier to make a change without having to go to the plant floor to do so. The problem currently with WinCC Flex is it simply can't find the "reachable" HMI stations, (in my case; ethernet to profibus). It will, however, see them if they are on the same network type, ie; Profibus to Profibus, MPI to MPI, etc.
I've since heard back from Siemens, and yes, it doesn't support true routing until SR1, (maybe..no guarantee). SR1 is due early first quarter.
Disappointing to say the least.