Consulting
Integration and Process Historians

Process Historians used for Integration

Very often in Process Industries, Process Historians have already existed for a couple of years.
At a certain point in time, one has started to store also data from other sources in the historian. Probably for valid reasons such as:

• There was no other system around.
• This was the easiest thing to do.
• He or she wanted to compare this data with data from the historian.
• Etc.

Enterprise wide information integration becomes more and more important.
This includes:

• Integration of data.
• Integration and comparison of information.
• Integration of user front-ends.
• Integration of business workflows.

The simplest part seems to be the integration of data. As one was already used to adding data constantly into an existing database or historian, following the same approach seems to be the best and simplest. One final result is:

• A huge database in which the relationship of all available data cannot be overseen.
• A rigid and very complex naming convention exists to separate information from different systems.
• Maintenance of the system is very difficult.
• Any shutdown time causes major headaches for many people, because everyone needs constant data from this system.

Integration on top of Process data

BeauTec uses another approach.
Using a very flexible object-oriented data model within proven RDBMS (Relational Database Management System) technologies, e.g. ORACLE, creation, enhancements and maintenance can be done during run time.
The data model provides a hierarchical meta-structure to allow access to all existing data in your environment.
Different views and hierarchies to the same data can be easily constructed without duplicating the data.
All source systems continue running and shutdown of one system hardly influences the rest.
Replacement or updates of existing best of class applications is a simple task as the old and new systems can be simultaneously integrated. A smooth transition is provided at any point in time.
The object-oriented approach allows manual and automated changes to the meta-data model without interference to the users running the system.
Different naming conventions are easily bridged by hierarchical look-ups.