A method for heterogeneous execution engines in a network centric process control system. The network centric process control system includes a plurality of nodes and each node includes one or more control service components, a middleware service component, a middleware API subcomponent, an address space subcomponent, and a communication component, where each control service component, middleware service component, and communication component is a separate executable running in a separate operating system process as provided by a real time operating system of each node. The method is performed by the network centric process control system, and includes identifying, by the communication component, a component of a node of the network centric process control system by an indication of a namespace ID of the component, forwarding, by the communication component, a request to the address space subcomponent of the identified component, wherein an item ID for runtime data of the identified component indicates an entity in the address space corresponding to the runtime data, and sending, by the communication component, an entity value, wherein the entity value corresponds to the requested runtime data. A network centric process control system, a computer program, and a computer program product for heterogeneous execution engines are also presented.