Updating software or firmware of a machine or plant is a complex task and different devices have different requirements to the update or installation of software. To support this, the SoftwareUpdateType provides several options where a vendor can select the parts that are necessary for the software update.

All these options are exposed as optional References of the SoftwareUpdateType. A Server can choose which options it wants to support (the Profiles section describes valid combinations of options).

This way the Server can choose between Direct-Loading, Cached-Loading or FileSystem based Loading and it may use additional optional features like manual power cycle, parameter backup / restore or confirmation.

A Software Update Client needs to check which options are exposed by the Server and how the Server behaves during the update (a Software Update Client is described in 8.3.5).