Transfer data from Aveva PI to Historian? (data flow: third party data source -> Aveva Pi -> Aveva Historian)

Hi Johnson,

Could you explain what is the use case that you are trying to solve? In our ideal architecture AVEVA Pi should be on top of Historian to consolidate all the operational data coming from all the different data source plus Historian.

So there isn't any native/direct way to send data from PI to Historian, but there are different options:

• Manual insert to Historian using CSV files. You can export data from PI in CSV format and then import as manual data into Historian. Format should be the one requested by Historian.
• Using AVEVA Application Server as a "gateway". From App. Server read data from PI using the webAPI and then this data can be mapped into Objects-Attributes and finally store in Historian.
• Using external tools to read data from PI, using one of the different options available and then insert this data to Historian using one of the existing options.

Hi Johnson,

Could you explain what is the use case that you are trying to solve? In our ideal architecture AVEVA Pi should be on top of Historian to consolidate all the operational data coming from all the different data source plus Historian.

So there isn't any native/direct way to send data from PI to Historian, but there are different options:

• Manual insert to Historian using CSV files. You can export data from PI in CSV format and then import as manual data into Historian. Format should be the one requested by Historian.
• Using AVEVA Application Server as a "gateway". From App. Server read data from PI using the webAPI and then this data can be mapped into Objects-Attributes and finally store in Historian.
• Using external tools to read data from PI, using one of the different options available and then insert this data to Historian using one of the existing options.

Thanks for your answer Ruben.

My customer has an existing setup where PI is getting data from some other third party data source, they just want the data to be also stored into a local historian without making big changes to the system. I'll suggest your answer and I'll find out more on the third party data source, it might be just easier if we just get that data to be stored into historian directly.

It would be interesting to know the reason why the customer wants to do that. As you mentioned, a possible option would be to store directly from the third party or if you are using InTouch or SP, you can directly display the PI data, either by embedding a report in PIVision or accessing that data through the PI API.

Noted. Thanks for your help on this.

All of Ruben's answers are spot on. I'll just point out one variation on his idea of using the PI Web API: If you're already using Application Server, Ruben's suggestion is probably better, but if you're not, you can use the Web Service Communication Driver directly with Historian as an "IDAS" tag. 

Another option I see is to use OPC DA Server for PI and connect to it (provided you have PSA).