Process Historian
A process historian is a database optimised for storing large volumes of time-series data from industrial sensors and control systems. It is the system of record for plant data and the foundation most analytics, AI and digital-twin tools build on.
Historians (such as AVEVA/OSIsoft PI) capture and compress millions of tag values over years, making them retrievable for trending, analysis and reporting. Because they hold the operational history of a plant, they are the usual data source for advanced analytics, predictive maintenance and digital twins — which is why historian integration is a recurring theme in industrial AI projects.
Related terms
SCADA · Industrial IoT (IIoT) · Digital Twin · Anomaly Detection
Related guides
Software
AVEVA Predictive Analytics
Early-warning analytics for critical process and power assets.
Seeq
Advanced analytics for time-series process data.
Cognite Data Fusion
Industrial DataOps and digital-twin foundation.