Proficy Historian

Proficy Historian 4.5

GE Intelligent Platforms announced release of the new version of the Proficy Historian 4.5 software product in November, 2011. This historical archive of an enterprise scale collects, arranges and processes massive amounts of data from different automation systems, providing strict control and acceptance of effective solutions. Thanks to a flexible open architecture it is easily integrated into systems which are already existing at the enterprise, increasing efficiency of the enclosed investments.

New Proficy Historian 4.5 is capable to support more than 15 million tags that is the best indicator in the industry. It allows users to collect and tell information at the enterprise level through the protected and scalable Historian platform.

"Proficy Historian 4.5 gives the chance to the enterprises to try to obtain the business objectives today and in the future," – Brian Courtenay, the chief manager on products for operational management of GE Intelligent Platforms company says. – Relying on this platform, the companies will be able successfully to implement initiatives of improvement of operational management."

Specialists from the Control and diagnostic center located in Atlanta (M&D) of GE Energy where Proficy is used for monitoring more than 1000 gas turbine units worldwide, wanted to be sure that the used architecture and hardware-software technologies not only are capable to expansion in process of business growth, but also can adapt to exponential increase in amount of data. The global research center GE recalled group of specialists for the analysis of use of technologies of Big Data for processing of large arrays of process information in the form of the time series which are "heart" of the applications used M&D GE Energy companies there.

"The GE corporation pays special attention to problems of work with Big Data and takes the leading positions in this area as work of a set of our divisions depends on effective management of enterprise-wide data" – Bill Rakh, the vice president of GE and the chief head for the initiatives connected with the software says. – Significant increase in information connected with execution of operations forces to analyze and compare more and more data. Open architectures and a possibility of interaction with business systems provide a complete context and accelerate adoption of business solutions."

In the course of the analysis which is carried out in August, 2011. The global research center GE, the difference of Proficy Historian from relational and unstructured databases when processing time series was revealed. Typical columnar or relational DB not really well are suitable for processing of process data in the form of time series of similar scale. Based on a research, some of new technologies are quite imperfect and do not correspond to real production/operating environment.

"As for process information, Proficy Historian is the full-function solution for management systems for data bulks," – Cortney says. – In this research our standard Proficy Historian – the solution exclusively simple in installation and use was used. For achievement so of good results we did not need to create any user programs. The research confirmed that the new version of Historian can successfully solve the problems connected with Big Data without significant personalisation or changes of infrastructure."